Avsnitt
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In this newsletter:
* Signing the promissory purchase contract
* Another neoslife podcast
* New website
* First renders of the 34 bedroom neoslife hotel to open in 2025
* Meet Neo, the 4th resident of neoslife
* Last Call: Two spots left for the retreat next week. If you are an investor, supporter, influencer or future resident, we have two spots left for the most transformative journey of your life. Apply here: ir.neoslife.com
Thanks for reading my awakening - neoslife. Subscribe for free to receive new posts.
On 2/4/24, five months after I first set foot on this beautiful land, we signed the contract to acquire the estate that is becoming neoslife.
It was the only land I ever looked at and I knew right away this is it. How the land found me and everything that happened after was nothing short of miraculous and full of synchronicities. Miracles are real if we allow ourselves to see and act on them.
Signing the purchase agreement turned out to be an emotional day for me. Iām full of gratitude for all who have supported me on this journey till now and to the many more to come. So many have messaged me, strangers and friends alike, from all corners of the world that want to live there, learn, contribute, participate or understand what it is.
Itās been an intense, beautiful, exhausting, fun, scary and humbling five months all at the same time. I learnt that nothing is impossible when we want something from the bottom of our hearts ā and it activates huge resources and support. I cannot wait to see what we will all be creating there together starting this July. I know it will be magical.
The human story is yearning for a new paradigm, a new way of being in harmony with each other, nature and ourselves. Adversity, war, conflicts and diseases were all necessary for us to remember who we are not. We have played this game of fear and animosity long enough.
Weāre ready to wake up to a new story and to bring paradise to earth. neoslife is intended to support us with that and that one day there will be many āneoslivesā and with all of us living in love, peace and harmony with each other, nature and ourselves. It might sound like a utopia but it really is the future we are creating.
Weāve been gifted such a beautiful world, letās also make our human experience an extraordinary and beautiful one ā because we can.
That today may be the day where we start writing a new chapter of the human journey. I know we will make it happen.
With all my love, thank youVincentšš»š«ā¤ļøš
Another neoslife podcast
Where I talk about how the land found me at a random encounter at the airport, what neoslife is and why the world wants and needs it.
We also cover my journey from investment banking to Bitcoin and spirituality, loosing a fortune speculating, personal growth, society, technology, the upcoming retreat, the neoslife vision, the spiritual journey, psychedelics, awakening and purpose.
I hope you enjoy it!
You can also listen on Spotify.
We have a new website
Mobile friendly and more structured. Still a lot of moving pieces but its progressing.
Check it out at neos.life.
Fourth resident of neoslife
Please welcome Neo. On Easter Sunday, this eight week old face looked at me at a seemingly random encounter. I wasnāt planning on getting a dog just like I did not expect the land to find me at an airport encounter. She was gifted to me, literally and figuratively.
Life is magical when I get out of the way and let it take its course. Now female Neo is part of the family and will move with me onto the land in July.
neoslife hotel and retreat center
Another view of one of the future hotel guest rooms.
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neoslife on podcast
Recently I had the opportunity to share my journey from investment banking to Bitcoin, psychedelics, spirituality and neoslife on the Once Bitten Bitcoin podcast. If you enjoy this newsletter, you will enjoy this podcast. Here are the Spotify and Youtube links.
neoslife in development
This is an early-stage of what I am working on with a Shan, our 3D designer. Itās not a refection of the actual village but us playing with how to best display it:
neoslife on WhatsApp
The growing neoslife community has now a home: Join our 160 people strong WhatsApp chat to follow along.
Thanks for reading my awakening - neoslife. Subscribe for free to receive new posts.
Earlier this week, I attended the ChangeNOW conference in Paris.
The conference website states:
WE ACCELERATE THE TRANSITION TO A SUSTAINABLE WORLD. We lead and amplify concrete actions that inspire and change norms, companies and individuals. Step into a sustainable world - THE LARGEST EVENT OF SOLUTIONS FOR THE PLANET.
It was a three-day conference but 24 hours after touching down I was back in Lisbon.
The conference was a full-on display why the world is not improving. None of the many incredible solutions will solve the problem of hunger, poverty, climate change, eco destruction or anything else.
Because none of them addresses the root cause of the problems we find ourselves in: Our way of being.
Hereās a 60 seconds video of me at the conference explaining.
The conference was heartless and many speakers inauthentic. The opening statements could not have been less inspiring. From the feel it could as well have been a banking conference.
Whatās the problem?
The world we live in is a direct reflection of who we are being as a civilisation of eight billion people.
If I want to change the world so that I look better, become richer or more important I will not make a positive impact.
Neither if my solutions are focused on external, outside of me, solutions, no matter how brilliant or well intended.
When I create from ego or fear, what I create will be ego-driven and fear-driven and thereby amplify the problem not solve it.
What needs to precede any desire to change something is the desire to change oneself first.
Whatever I am doing is a function of who I am being.
The reason the world is not improving despite the millions of people trying to solve its problems and the trillions of dollars that are poured into the supposed solutions is simply because none are addressing the root cause:
Our separate sense of self.
As long as I believe my life is about me and I need to have more money, power or control to be safe or feel good, whatever I create will create more of the same.
Social media is a beautiful example. It was meant to make the world more connected but it really has created more silos, polarisation and separation. Not because thereās anything wrong with the technology but because technology simply amplifies who we are being.
AI will be the biggest amplifier of this and it will crush us if we donāt wake up from the illusion of being separate.
Whatās the āsolutionā?
My primary job as a human is to evolve. This is the very purpose of life. If I am not evolving I am wasting my life because this is what I came here to do.
After I exit the body I am in stasis again and hence the opportunity to evolve is lost.
As a collective, we are meant to evolve from feeling separate from each other and therefore fighting and competing our way through life to remembering that we are individual expressions of one universal consciousness that simply uses the human life to experience itself and evolve.
We are this consciousness and we are playing with ourselves the human game of life.
How? By having forgotten who we truly are.
And the ājobā we came here to ādoā is to wake up from the dream of separation and to remember who we really are thereby returning to a state of pure love for life, the world, each other and most importantly ourselves. Because
We are one.
This return to love and oneness is what we are all secretly yearning yet what is for our separate minds so very difficult to understand.
The moment we remember and therefore act from a place of individually expressed oneness again, poverty, hunger, wars and the destruction of nature will all end at once because we understood that really we are one single organism of consciousness hurting itself.
No one in their right mind would hurt himself yet that is what we are doing.
That is, until we wake up from the illusion.
How can we ādoā it?
neoslife is the vehicle I am building to create a place for this new way of being, helping us to remember and experiencing again who we always were.
We have just forgotten.
A life in harmony, peace and love we are all yearning for can be created right now.
All it takes is that I let go of my idea of being a separate self by waking up from this illusion.
I ādoā this by living from the heart rather than the fear-driven mind.
Yes, Vincent has a separate body, mind and personality but the consciousness that is experiencing itself through this avatar called Vincent is the same as yours.
And it is eternal. I was never born and I will never die. Only Vincent was born and Vincent will die but not the consciousness that looks through his eyes.
Itās the same consciousness that looks through yours and hence when I hurt you or only think of myself it is simply the unevolved me who has forgotten that we are of the very same consciousness.
I am building neoslife to help us in the process of remembering our true nature allowing us to create heaven on earth again completing the human journey we came for:
To remember who we truly are: Consciousness or God as some call it.
How can you help?
By waking up yourself.
April 10-14, we are inviting eight potential investors for a life-changing experience where they will remember who they truly are beyond their bodies, minds and personalities.
We are providing this sacred experience unconditionally of any monetary exchange.
It is the most incredible and exhilarating adventure there is. It is tasting eternity.
It is an initiation into the best kept secret of the universe: Your truth.
If this could be you, please fill out this form: ir.neolsife.com.
We are looking forward to welcoming you home.
We thank you for following this invitation.
Beauty awaits you.
With loveVincent
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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This April, I am inviting eight participants to a transformational retreat on the future neoslife estate in Alentejo, Portugal.
You will be guided by the best facilitators that have supported and catapulted me forward on my journey of growth.
Building on the retreats we started last year, in a first, all of us are joining forces to bring you the most transformative experience yet.
We will embark on two different journeys with the Toad and the Heart Protocol.
I have written about my profound experiences with both these medicines in previous newsletters.
Furthermore, we will dive into meditation guided by a master, connect with our bodies through yoga and energetic massages and be nourished with incredible food all while being surrounded by the magic of this very special land.
Fouad, Jeff, John and Sam are all flying in from different corners of the US especially to guide you through this life-changing experience.
A team of nine of us will look after you and I will personally support you in your process of integration in the weeks and months after.
This will be my gift to the selected participants.
You will never look at life the same way.
Who is this for?
We are inviting eight individuals to go through the most transformative experience of their lives allowing them to discover and unleash their own greatness.
And at the same time, to experience the magic of the estate, meet the neoslife team and learn about the vision to explore their financial support for the creation of a place for the world to transform.
For neoslifeās vision to flourish, we need investors to make it happen.
If this is you or you know someone who should be one of the eight, please respond to this message and I will share more about the retreat.
Following closing, I will move onto the land to oversee the development and operations with all my resources, mind and heart.
I already have invested more than ā¬300,000 as well five months of full-time work.
Developing neoslife is and will continue to be my sole and exclusive focus.
I am all-in. To learn more about the project, visit neoslife.
I canāt wait for us to spend these days together and unleash true greatness.
Welcome to a new life.
With much loveVincent
If you have not seen the land yet, here it is:
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com -
Our fiat money is, just like the systems we are part of (countries, governments, companies etc.) a collectively agreed upon imagination. Conversely to what we are told, since the $ has been decoupled from gold in 1971, fiat money is no longer backed by anything but our joint belief.
With the incessant money printing going on and the ever increasing government debt ($34,000,000,000,000 for the US alone, i.e. $100,000 for every US citizen), more and more people are questioning how much longer this house of cards can stand.
"I donāt believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we canāt take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they canāt stop." ā Friedrich August von Hayek (1984)
Welcome to Bitcoin
The abuse of our money has been the very reason for the creation of Bitcoin. It was launched at the end of the financial crises with the following headline written into its genesis block: āThe Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.ā
Bitcoin is this āsly roundabout way that they canāt stop.ā
Why has Bitcoin gone from being worth cents to $60,000 and a market cap of $1.2 trillion in less than 15 years?
More and more people understand the value of Bitcoin in a world where central banks and governments are out of control.
What is money?
Money serves three purposes: 1) store of value, 2) medium of exchange and 3) unit of account.
A critical aspect of the quality of money is that it preserves its value. The issue with all fiat currencies is that central banks can create more of it at will. And especially in recent years they have done so increasingly and recklessly. Plainly spoken itās legalised theft and an example that legal and ethical are two very different things.
Inflation in consumption items and asset values like stocks and real estate is a direct function of the creation of money. Yes, there are other factors but this is the main factor few economists and central bankers talk about because if they were we would realise that the rigged game they are playing with us.
Central banking is legal theft
Whenever a central bank creates more money it directly devalues all the existing money. Your $/ā¬/Ā£ are immediately worth less. And they call it inflation.
Imagine there were only $1 million in the world. Suddenly the central bank decides that its government needs more money and they create - with the push of a button - another $1 million. The amount of monetary units has doubled but nothing else has changed. Everything will increase in price because double the amount of units are now chasing the same amount of assets and goods.
This is how the system has been stealing from all of us since the money has been delinked from gold - a scarce asset. Why scarce? Because it costs a lot of energy to mine gold and the new supply is therefore limited.
Bitcoin ā the best money
Bitcoin is the new, much improved gold because not only is it scarce and hard to create but it has absolute scarcity.
No government nor anyone else can ever create more Bitcoin. There will only ever be 21 million. Itās therefore the hardest/best money there is.
As more and more people understand this very core principle about the quality of money they buy Bitcoin and this pushes up the price - because of its limited supply.
This process has been accelerated with the recent launch of Bitcoin spot ETFs (exchange-traded funds) that make buying Bitcoin much easier for the traditional financial rails and institutions and everyone else. It has been the most successful ETF launch ever.
Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme
Bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme because existing investors are not paid by new investors. The price keeps going up because of its limited supply and the fact that the majority of Bitcoins are not available for sale.
70% of Bitcoins have not moved/been sold in the last year and 80% not in the last six months because holders increasingly understand Bitcoin continuously increasing in value. Itās the perfect store of money so why would you sell it if you donāt have to.
Bitcoin has been the best performing asset
What scares many people is the extreme volatility. The reason is that even today it is still very early days and most people donāt own any Bitcoin. Its total market cap is still less than 10% of that of gold. The market is still in its learning phase and therefore speculation is ripe which is reflected in the price. Donāt confuse price with its underlying value.
Despite its volatility, Bitcoin has demonstrated to be the best performing asset over the past decade even and especially when adjusted for its volatility/risk. While it goes down a lot, it goes up a lot more and will continue to do so. As Bitcoiners say: Itās just math.
With governments and central banks getting ever more out of control, there is no better time to hedge yourself and own some Bitcoin. There will ever be only 21 million so not even every current millionaire (56 million) nor every US millionaire (22 million) will ever be able to own a full Bitcoin. Far from it because the majority of Bitcoins are not for sale which creates even more upside pressure on the price.
And if you think Bitcoin is expensive at $60,000 wait until itās $100,000 then 200,000. The question is not if but when.
Owning Bitcoin is owning a piece of the future financial system free from governments manipulation, control and especially devaluation.
Bitcoin is peace
By holding Bitcoin you are voting with your money. Governments would not be able to go to wars if they could not print money at will as they would need to raise taxes to pay for the wars - a very unpopular decision. It means we would enter wars only for defence or where the majority explicitly wants it and is willing to pay for it.
Just like the state and church are meant to be separated, so is money meant to be independent of governmentsā control. And with Bitcoin we now have to technology to complete this separation. The world will be much better off for it.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice but merely reflects my opinion. Bitcoin is highly volatile. Invest only what you are willing to loose.
And this is how welcoming the Bitcoin ecosystem is: Hereās nobody me discussing Bitcoin with Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, a public company that owns $12 billion worth of Bitcoin. We talked for 12 mins. I don't know of any other industry where that happens.
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Note: At the end of the article you find a new video of the estate neoslife is buying.
Imagine putting on an Apple VisionPro headset and entering a virtual world. Now imagine never taking this headset off and believing that the virtual reality you are experiencing is Reality.
This is what life is. We put on the āheadsetā of being a person at birth and we take it off again at death. Yet we believe that we are the headset, our body and mind, when they are merely our interface to experience life.
What we really are is the awareness behind this headset. The awareness that is experiencing life through the mind-body headset.
This awareness is ever present and eternal and doesnāt know birth nor death. Birth is simply the moment we put on the headset for the human journey.
Whatās the purpose?
You chose to put on the headset to evolve. The purpose is specific to you. Itās your tailor-made experience.
And thereās a higher purpose: To understand who you truly are.
We are awareness = consciousness = love = source = God = creator = everything = oneness.
(Pick whichever label you resonate with. They all mean the same. God has nothing to do with religion. Itās simply the spiritual word for consciousness.)
But how can I understand what I am if I am everything?
Rich is meaningless without poor. So is beauty without ugliness or light without darkness and love without fear. We need polarity to understand.
Therefore, to understand who I am I have to experience what I am not.
This is what the earthly experience is about: I experience myself as a separate self so that I can experience what I am not and therefore understand what I am (which in itās ultimate step means everything / awareness / ā¦).
How does it work?
Once I understand what I am not (separate, ego, personality, self), I can take the headset off and experience what I truly am. This is called āwaking upā.
The ultimate purpose of life is to wake up from the illusion we have created. This is the purpose of this illusion: To wake up from it.
The practical consequence of this is that once I wake up (not to be confused with ābeing wokeā) embracing the much larger reality I am, I start using my life for a higher purpose, in service to others, rather than what my security and pleasure-seeking ego self wants or craves.
Why? Because realising that I am not an individual self I start treating everyone āelseā as if it was me. Now imagine if we were all to do that what a beautiful world weād live in. This is the promise of waking up. It is the ultimate utopia. And itās a real thing.
Itās a head twister and might sound crazy but who said life is straight forward.
Why should you care?
If I donāt realise who/what I truly am then itās impossible to make the most of this life experience.
While thatās per se not a problem, why would I want to choose a less joyful experience and missing out on its purpose? Thatās like buying a movie ticket and then covering my eyes and ears. Itās self defeating.
The consensus belief that our life is the ultimate reality is the single source of all the suffering and dissatisfaction we are trying to escape from throughout our entire lives. It keeps us trapped in the perception that we are separate from everything else.
And it keeps us grasping for more. Ironically, our very seeking of pleasure and trying to avoid pain is the very thing that keeps us locked-up in the prison of never finding the satisfaction we are yearning for.
The never-ending rat race for a better tomorrow that we canāt win ā and then we die.
How do I wake up?
First, I need to fully grasp that I am (in) an illusion.
There are various ways to experience your true (soul) self: Death, a near-death experience, certain psychedelics and deep extended meditation or self inquiry, to name a few. Itās not a quick process. Itās developmental just as growing up is.
Second, I need to live it.
Understanding the illusion not just intellectually/by knowing but reflecting it in my way of being. I need to step out of the illusion and act accordingly. I need to follow my intuition, an inner calling rather than following my survival and ego-driven mind. This is much harder than the first step (which is already difficult).
Third, I need to remember why I came here.
To experience life was a conscious choice. We play in this game of identity, time and space with the purpose to evolve. I might have come here to learn forgiveness and hence keep experiencing seemingly unforgivable experiences. Whatever resistance I seem to be up against, thatās where my purpose lies and where transformation takes place.
Those three are not necessarily sequential steps. Waking up is more like an iterative, spiralling up process.
Waking up is hard
As I am writing these lines, Iām reflecting on my own process of waking up from the illusion. I have gained certainty through experiencing it that life and the person Vincent is is an illusion: It is a temporary construct through which I am experiencing myself (step 1).
However, embodying this in my every day life has been rather challenging. As Einstein said:
āReality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.ā
This is why I have been working on it for now a decade. My goal is to fully and permanently wake up and navigate life from that place of full surrender. Itās not an easy feast nor a fast one but I know it can be done and I am convinced I can do it (and everyone of us can). We are much more powerful beings than we think we are.
Humanity as a whole is going the opposite direction. We are getting trapped ever more deeply in the material illusion and our pain is increasing in the process. Itās not a coincidence that mental health is getting ever more worse ā a reflection of our level of unconsciousness.
Let's make it easier
neoslife is the vehicle I am building to make it easier for us to wake up and live thriving lives. No one can do it for you just like no one can go to the gym for you but it definitely helps to have great coaches, environment and community.
For this purpose we are acquiring a beautiful piece of land to create a home and village for a new way of being. I just came back from my sixth visit shooting the below video. Itās an unedited/unfinished version but why not share it.
In April, we are holding a world-first transformation experience for up to eight potential investors. During this life-changing weekend you will not only experience neoslife and the estate but understand for yourself what all the fuss of waking up is about and why it will change the world. If that could be you, hit reply.
With loveVincent
NB. Yes, the ostriches, cows and sheep are all part of it. Because of previous heavy rains the water is brown rather than blue.
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After a decade of seeking truth, I have to conclude that the seemingly inconceivable is true:
Censorship is everywhere.
We play part in a global conspiracy.
It is all a big show. Nothing is what it seems to be.
Governments are no longer our protectors but our enslavers.
Wars are fought not to bring peace but to extend power and wash money.
Politicians are groomed, elections influenced and leaders are instructed what to do.
The media is its propaganda machine serving the agenda of our global enslavement.
Hollywood movies like the Truman Show and Matrix are closer to reality than fiction.
The difference between China and the West is that we are made to believe we are free when we are trapped in an intricate system of lies that provide sufficient freedoms to keep us highly productive entities.
The longer we ignore the above, the tighter the system becomes with us ultimately all living in a social credit system under a one world government with a programmable central bank digital currency.
We will own nothing, our freedoms will be constrained and we will be dependent on the government as AI and robots do all of our work. Yuval Harari already refers to us as the useless class.
Both Orwellās 1984 and Our Brave New World are coming true.
We are talking years not decades. The WEF, WHO, Bill Gates, George Soros, the military-industrial complex, CIA and other agencies are hard at work to make this dystopian future a reality.
Sociopaths are running the world but only our lack of awareness and compliance keeps the system in place. We vastly outnumber them.
This will upset a lot of people, get me canceled and ignored. I get it. Itās very upsetting to me too. I used to think all of the above is crazy talk. I wish it was.
However, things are accelerating so fast that I feel we no longer have the luxury of time to not take a public stand.
Luckily, people are waking up and fighting the system. Most recently the farmers in Europe.
We have a small window of opportunity to turn this ship around.
What can we do about it?
My focus is the creation of a new, humane system of living. A new earth.
I used to think neoslife - the New Earth Operating System for life is about the creation of a well-being center and village.
But the most urgent matter is to create a home that celebrates freedom, well-being and removes us from the dependence on the government. Where we live on our own land, with our own food, energy, water, holistic healthcare, school and community.
This is my mission. I have committed my personal resources to it. This is not a vanity or commercial project. Itās about creating a beautiful Noahās Arc where we will all want to live ā freely and happily.
We are in the process of acquiring this 410 ha (1,010 acres) estate 75 mins outside of Lisbon, Portugal. Legal due diligence has just been completed and we are ready to move forward.
Itās imho the perfect place to create a new civilisation while being close enough to the existing one. We only need ā¬5MM to kickstart it.
If this is you or you know someone, please get in touch and letās create a place worth living.
With loveVincent
Hereās a 3D model of the land. Use mouse/trackpad and shift key to navigate it.
Want to dive deeper?
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It has become clear to me that thereās a need to swiftly create and scale a āhuman transformation engineā. More on that below.
āWe f**k each other over all the time, without even realising it. We f**k every living thing on this planet over and think itāll be fine because we user paper straws and order the free range chicken. And the sick thing is, I think deep down we know weāre not fooling anyone. I think we know weāre living a lie. An agreed upon mass delusion to help us ignore and keep ignoring how awful we really are.ā
ā Julia Roberts in Leave the World Behind
Why do we do that? Why are we not learning and evolving into a higher consciousness, a higher way of being? It seems we are blind to whatās going on. Are we too ābusyā with our own lives or maybe we just donāt care or hope it will all go away? Because somewhere there are people taking advantage of our ignorance:
āMake no mistake the final goal is to eradicate humanity as we know it. Once you understand the final destination it becomes much easier to look back and identify the psychological conditioning, the biological tampering, the cultural grooming and the educational prepping that we have been subjected to for decades in preparation to making us accept a posthuman future. It takes a lot of physical and psychological abuse to get an intelligent species like ours to agree to its own extinction.ā
ā Paulo Aboli at the Better Way Conference 2023
Crazy talk? I invite you to reflect, especially those that have journeyed spiritually and psychedelically, that what you mentally believe to be true is simply that: A belief. Our minds are tight prisons within the greater reality.
Thatās why it is crucial for us to reconnect with our intuition and deeper knowing ā a place that is free from conditioning and that cannot be manipulated. Ask yourself: What do you KNOW to be true?
time is a luxury we might not have
I also invite you to watch this enlightening interview with intellectually brilliant biologist Bret Weinstein as he dissects what happened during Covid, and, more importantly, what is happening right now. With the WHO pandemic treaty on its way to being signed by our governments this coming May, we are seeing a big step towards a one-world government being implemented in front of our own eyes ā with nobody talking about what should be front-page news.
āThe COVID pandemic caused us to become aware of a lot of structures that had been built around us, something that former NSA officer William Binney once described as the turnkey totalitarian state, the totalitarian state is erected around you. But itās not activated. And then once itās built, the key gets turned.ā
ā Bret Weinstein
Click on the picture to watch the video or read the transcript here. It is an eye-opening interview even for the most sceptical towards Covid disclosure. If you are short for time, watch the last ten minutes.
davos 2024 vs. waking up
As some of you are making your way to Davos next week, take this opportunity to reflect upon the state of the world and how you may be part of its devolution through inaction. Be honest because once a totalitarian agenda is implemented, it will be very difficult to undo. The time for action is now. Observe yourself, the conversations and the people: Where do I see things going wrong? And what am I doing about it? Because if not me, who?
Stop holding back. Indeed a global consciousness is what is required. Yet how will that come about? Somebody has to start. The opportunity is here for you. You can be the source of this new consciousness. You can be the inspiration. Indeed you must be. Who else is there?
ā Conversations with God, Book 2
Luckily, there are more and more people recognising what is going on and willing to speak about it openly even at the risk of being canceled or ridiculed. Iād love to be wrong but I am convinced that while we have a window of opportunity to turn things around, we are moving fast towards a point of no return. I believe that to be 2027.
It gives us three years if we are lucky. It could be much less. The world is moving very fast these days while our attention is captured by our personal lives, Netflix, making more money and news distraction, diversion and the polarisation with Israel vs. Gaza (and previously Ukraine vs. Russia) ā an online shouting match of who is more evil.
People are suffering and the mediaās game is to focus our attention and to tell us what to believe ā divide and conquer while distracting us from what is really going on. And as you are engaging in this exchange, my question again: What am I really doing? Am I making a difference? When will it be bad enough so that I take action? If not me, who?
we are due for an upgrade
Elon Musk said in a recent interview that āthe amount of compute dedicated to AI is increasing by a factor of ten roughly every six monthsā. If this is true, it means AI is increasing by a factor of 100 per year, a factor of 10,000 (10x10x10x10) every two years and a factor of 1,000,000 over three years. Itās hard to grasp exponentials and nearly impossible to grasp the implications of this. 2026 will be nothing like 2023. Nothing.
While technology has been evolving exponentially, our human āoperating systemā, our consciousness has stagnated at best. It still operates the way it did 1,000 years ago. We still resolve disagreements through physical force, war and conflicts. We still follow the Darwinian survival of the fittest ā and hence keep f*****g things up.
Having God-like technologies in the hands of cavemen is a dangerous combination. Especially in the hands of those that seem to have a very specific plan for humanity as Bret masterfully explains in the interview above. Itās time to wake up.
calibrating your compass to true north
So what am I doing about it? neoslifeās immediate focus will be to become a transformation engine: A significant evolution and deepening of what we started with the Awaken to Beauty retreats.
A residential one-week program where you go through a deeply transformative experience that wakes you up to your true being and we subsequently work through all your issues. Itās an all-in, no backdoors program. You will do open-heart surgery on your being to unleash your soul and to get into full alignment with your reason of being.
Once your heart is liberated and your understanding of self evolved, we will move on to a crash-course in understanding the world around you. You bring all your beliefs (whatever they are) and we will challenge them until you finally get to YOUR truth rather than the one you have been made to believe over your lifetime. We will help you remove the tumour and step out of the collective delusion.
You will be calibrating your compass to true north. It wonāt be our truth or answers but we will be here to help you find yours by empowering you to look deep inside yourself. It is deep inner work, a labour of love.
It is also the most difficult and the most beautiful work. Itās called The Great Work. It really is the only work we are here to do. As a result, your doing will become an expression of your being. The gift of knowing is the freedom from thinking.
a priceless gift
The reason you will choose to take this challenging journey is that you may get something priceless: The clarity of who you are and why you are alive, the freedom to be unconditionally you, the courage to live a full life, an absence of fear, doubt and anxiety, a community for life to support you on your journey and, I have no doubt, so much more that we will discover together.
I see you and your suffering, however big or small. Writing these lines has cost me every ounce of my energy. Many times, I asked myself whether I am going crazy and what am I doing with my life? Many times, I had to wade into deep and dark waters full of alligators only to find out that they were fictions of my mind.
This is an offering from my soul to yours: To cleanse your heart to reconnect with your soul and remember who you truly are. You will know whether you are called to come. And when you are, we will be here for you to be reborn and supporting you at every step along the way.
Births are difficult but giving life to yourself is the most beautiful gift there is. It really is the only thing that matters.
I leave you with this poem.
That all the love may find youVincent
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I am committing my entire net worth to bring neoslife to life ā to igniteā¦
a new age of enlightenment
The world is crumbling: War, conflicts, polarisation, destruction of nature, moral decay, anxiety, depression and loneliness epidemics just to name a few. We have lost our way on a staggering scale.
Simultaneously, AI and robotics are taking over the world at unfathomable speed. Within a few years there will be close to no human task that technology cannot take care of. This means most of us will become - commercially speaking - useless.
Paired with financial wealth, land and power being consolidated by a small number of people and institutions, we have the ingredients for the perfect storm: A totalitarian one-world government controlled by money and technocrats where your money is programatically controlled (CBDCs) and you get your universal basic income (UBI) once you complied with their requirements. China is showing us the future.
But not all is lost. Itās darkest before dawn. Every challenge is equally an opportunity, an opportunity to change, grow and transform. Eighty years ago one man brought the world to its knees and in the process killed millions of people. But was it really just one man or was it the entire Western world, hundreds of million people standing by in quiet complicity until the very last moment when the horrors became so great that they could no longer ignore it?
We are finding ourselves at the outset of just such a grave moment again. And again it might be hard to see it without the benefit of hindsight ā as it was when Hitler rose to power. Of course, itās a very different situation but history doesnāt repeat itself but rhymes. Staying on the current path, we are moving towards an extinction level event for humanity at worst and the Hunger Games at best.
So whatās the opportunity? To wake up from our sleeping state and change the direction 180 degrees and create a new age of enlightenment. How? By massively raising our consciousness and changing our way of being. How? Be creating a new model on how to live that makes the current outdated and dysfunctional model obsolete. How? I encourage you to look into the mirror and ask yourself this question: What do I know to be right but ignore? What do I need to change? How do I need to show up differently?
what i am doing
āDon't fight the existing system; build a new system that makes the old system obsolete." ā Buckminster Fuller
Hereās a 5 mins video sharing the vision (thank you Darius for capturing me):
We are building a fully self-sufficient village in Portugal. It will incorporate all what we know about how to live well, healthy and free amongst each other while enjoying all the riches life has to offer including the support to heal, evolve and thrive. I wrote about it in more detail here.
This is a big undertaking but imho more important than anything we have ever done. It is about building a modern day Noahās Ark. This time itās not a ship but land where we freely reimagine the way we live and remember what it means to be human.
To put my money where my mouth is, I am pledging my entire net worth of 600,000 Euro irrevocably to this project. I am āburning the boatā ensuring that this project will succeed and that I will leave no stone unturned to make it happen. Failure is not an option.
There is no better and more important investment than into our future. We are yearning to find a new way of being human. Letās showcase the world that thereās a better way. We donāt have much time.
An incredible team has already come together to bring this vision to life. Hereās a look at just some of the people involved (in no particular order), new supporters are joining us every week.
To lay the foundation for a new perennial model for humanity, I foresee a structure with a Swiss foundation at the top and for-profit entities underneath that allows you to invest in what I expect to be a financially rewarding undertaking: High impact comes with high rewards. We are creating the New Earth Operating System for Life ā NEOSLIFE. And the land, the āhardwareā we found is spectacular.
Simultaneously, the foundation will be able to attract tax-deductible donations and NGO grants and ensure the vision will survive us all. This structure is inspired by OpenAI (see here) adapting it for what didnāt work including wisely choosing a vision-aligned, capable board of āeldersā. Hereās a draft.
an invitation to reimagine being human
If you feel the calling to be part of reimagining how we live and to contribute to preventing suffering on an unforeseen scale, I invite you to get in touch. We are in the process of acquiring the land for which we need additional seed investors to bring this vision to life.
Hereās a glimpse of it from the air. It is literally made for neoslife, a new way of life. In my previous newsletter I shared more about this very special land.
Beyond investment, we are inviting individuals who are passionate about creating and operating this vision: Visionaries, architects, farmers, hospitality experts, marketing, operations, financing, structuring, administration, development, HR, legal, communityā¦ There will be things to do for everyone who identifies with the vision, is passionate and skilled and dreams of living in nature while enjoying all the benefits of a city surrounded by fellow dreamers and doers.
In its full development, we envisage around 1,000 people being simultaneously on the land (guests, day visitors, patients, staff and residents). Everything we need will be provided by our village plentiful so when the world locks down again, we continue as usual. The land even has an airstrip for small planes.
Thereās so much more to say but I will stop here. Get in touch if this resonates. I am excited for you to be a part of building the future of humanity. Together, we have an opportunity to create something truly extraordinary.
If you would like to stay up to date, join our Telegram channel.
I am forever grateful to all the teachers on my journey that showed me the light and continuously give me the courage to see this vision through. You know who you are. I stand on the shoulders of giants. This would not be possible without you.
To a new beginning. With much loveVincent1/1/24
PS. Hereās neoslifeās genesis story and how my lifeās journey lead me here.
And letās have fun doing it. Yesterday was my fourth visit to the land together with business, regeneration and village building experts:
Questions, ideas, suggestions or just want to connect, reply to this email.
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if you are looking to invest into the future of humanity, here's an opportunity to be part of it. we found magical land to build the neoslife center ā a paradigm shifting place that will be the first of its kind in the world.
when we are in full alignment, things move at lightning speed.
not in my wildest dreams would i have expected to write these lines already in 2023 but after years of quiet preparation the neoslife village, center and resort for healing, well-being and human thriving is ready to become a reality, ready to be born. hereās a high level outline i wrote a year ago after my transformative ayahuasca experience: neoslife center
the village will include:
* a cutting edge healing center bridging science, wisdom and spirituality focused on prevention and curing rather than conventional symptom treatment (led by my teacher dr. nader butto),
* a co-working and creation center,
* a meditation and inner wisdom center,
* a school that helps the next generation to become self-sovereign critical thinkers,
* an academy teaching and furthering our understanding of how mind, body and soul are integrated and thereby how to live healthy and happy lives,
* a resort and residences for guests, staff and permanent residents hosting around 1,000 people at the same time,
* a farm based on regenerative and permaculture agriculture that will fully sustain the whole village with its own water and energy production and free roaming animals across the land,
* all of the above integrated into the local community and in harmony with all stakeholders no matter who they are or where they are from and
* a few other things that will make this place truly unique on this planet.
we are on earth to commune together and the neoslife village will model that this is not only possible but value accretive for everyone while providing comfort, modern amenities and even luxury living in harmony with nature and the local community. yes, we can have all of that without compromising and this project will showcase it to the world creating the first modern blue zone. it will also be a fully self-sustained and self-sufficient village ā who knows when the next lock-down comes.
this is no longer just a vision: we have found a beautiful 420 ha piece of land in alentejo, portugal within 75 mins from lisbon airport and the city that overdelivers on what we were looking for to become the most cutting edge health, healing and well-being center and community.
the land is operational and already comes with
* itās own drinking water sources and several water bodies including a dam,
* 170 cows and various other animals,
* most of the areas is covered with cork trees ā a source of beauty and income,
* existing buildings with 16 bedrooms, restaurant and social spaces that are currently used for hunting tourism,
* agricultural equipment including tractors and
* even its own airplane landing strip.
imagery of the land: first picture is the northern part, second picture the southern ā both parts are divided by the dam in the middle.
hereās a glimpse of the land around the dam:
the following is a concept design from two years ago for a much smaller and hence denser resort. with the above land, things will be spaced out and it will mostly be single housing with few large buildings and a maximum of two floors embedded into the hills so that what will dominate are splendid views of nature from any place inside and outside.
this image gives you an idea of the topography and extensiveness of the land. itās width in the middle is 2km (1.2 miles) and itās height is 3.1km (1.9 miles) for a total of 4.2km2 or 420 ha. from the highest peak to the river valley has an altitude differential of 100m (330 feet). the land has several hill chains which provide stunning views and privacy across. there might also be an opportunity to buy the adjacent land which compromises another 280 ha.
there are many more details about the land, the project and the amazing people involved that i am happy to share if you would like to learn more.
whatās next?
we have secured the land and are now looking for the initial seed money to complete the purchase, start the planning process, hire an architect and do a refurbishment of the existing buildings and facilities so the land becomes operational for retreats this coming summer. we are meeting the municipality next week to discuss our vision with the mayor and urban planning team.
i cannot think of a more rewarding investment opportunity (impact, well-being-wise and financially) especially in the polarised and adverse times we find ourselves. here you have an opportunity to be part of a peaceful revolution in showing we can do so much better. i am fully committed to see this project through to the end.
neoslife - life reimagined
neoslife is my lifeās work together with many of the amazing souls that i have met and keep meeting along the path, some of them which are listed here: neoslife team. this list is continuously evolving and expanding as people get drawn towards the project. iām looking forward to soon include you or one of your acquainted investors. reply to this email or send a message to [email protected] to become part of this ride and have your own residence in this heaven on earth.
last but not least, we are looking for aligned early and later-stage investors that understand the vision and are primarily investing because of their connection with it rather than for a purely financial return. this project will provide prosperity for everyone involved financially and otherwise but it s not meant to be a mere transaction but a calling to create beauty.
if you are interested, i would also like to invite you to consider journeying with us this december 8 or 9 at Awaken to Beauty which will allow you to get to know the team, the project and even the land while having the most expansive experience and connecting deeply with the vision. i canāt wait to start working with you on this and create heaven on earth.
with love and excitement for whatās to comevincent
ps. hereās the timeline i outlined in 2022 and to my amazement, we are ahead.
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what if i could promise you everything you ever wanted? you might think: āhow could he possibly know what i want?ā or āhow could he possibly give me what i want?ā if you are like every other human being after removing all the mentally made-up wants i would bet that what you really desire is to enjoy freedom through peace of mind, joy and love.
whatās standing in the way? your mind. why? because itās driven by fear. fear of not having enough, fear of not being enough, not being safe, not being loved, not being understood, not beingā¦ what do all those fears (many of them unconscious) do to you? they make you suffer ā the absence of peace of mind, joy and love.
because of the worries you have about what you are (seemingly) not yet or what could happen to you in the future, life can be miserable. and to make up for that we try to acquire money, power, status and even try to buy love. whatās the result? the suffering only becomes more. why? because the hole we feel inside cannot be plugged by external achievements.
itās like taking anxiety medication. it doesnāt remove anxiety, it just suppresses it. just like all pharmaceuticals. they ātreatā symptoms rather than curing the cause. and so it is with our cravings to compensate the gap we feel inside.
whatās the solution? stop trying to fight the symptoms, address the cause. how? by healing to underlying trauma. how? by seeing the truth and awaken to your true nature. how? many ways lead to rome. we have created one that we call awaken to beauty. hereās one of our recent participants after experiencing her truth (1 min):
āi know who i am. i am not scared. i have seen humanity. i have seen the light. i have seen death. i have seen everything. i am not scared anymore. i am happy. thank you.ā ā alex, investor, participant of awaken
is this an adverting for our retreats? no. thereās a reason i have co-created this experience after nine years of looking for āthe answerā to lifeās big questions and how to get out of the never ending cycle of suffering. this creation is my gift to you and i wish every human being to experience what alex has. because when you do, you are ready and able to end your own and then all suffering including wars.
to clarify, this is not a magic pill. this is medicine. i like to call it a truth serum. it wonāt solve your problems but it will empower you to realise that what you think are problems are just distortions of your mind. once you have seen your mind for what it is, you will be ready to make the changes you secretly wanted to make all along.
and because an experience alone is not enough to create permanent change, this does require your desire and willpower to change, we have embedded this most profound experience in a whole life transformation and empowerment journey. we and the community of fellow travellers are here to support and empower you to make the changes you want so you can find the peace, joy and love that you came for to earth and that are your birthrights.
we are here for you when you are ready to put an end to whatever you need to put an end to. this is a sacred mission and i could not be more honoured to connect you to your truth when you got tired of playing the old game and are ready to awakentobeauty.co.
one by one we will see the light that is in all of us, that we all are.
with all my love for you and for all of humanity, i am in deep service to you, vincent
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the god molecule
two weeks ago, we held our first āawakenā experience together with john and fouad who have served the āgod moleculeā to 12,000 people. john is an american psychiatrist who realised on his journey that he could help people much more than prescribing symptom numbing pharmaceuticals by giving them a profound spiritual experience. six years ago, he quit his nyc based practice and started serving 5-meo-dmt exclusively.
as a reader of this newsletter you know iāve explored all kinds of psychoactive substances. however, there is nothing quite like this one which is extracted from the venom of the sonoran desert toad. in johnās words:
this is really hard to, itās ineffable, itās hard to put into words or describe. but many would describe this sense of: a deep inner soul journey where you feel like you are connected to oneness. you are connected to everything in the universe into infinity. we refer to it as non-duality. the sense of connecting to something deeply spiritual.
there are psychedelics and then thereās 5-meo-dmt. the moment you inhale this potion you experience yourself as something much greater than your mind and body realising ā without the shadow of a doubt ā that you are much more than that. this puts everything the mind thinks into a completely new context. itās a rebirth of oneself.
i donāt know what else to tell you because no words can do this experience justice. whatever you think you are or you are not, whatever you think you can do or cannot do, whatever you feel you are stuck with or challenges that you have in your life, this puts it all into a completely new frame. and this is why we chose this particular substance for the container we have created.
hereās a glimpse of it:
awaken to beauty
when i started this newsletter i called it āmy awakeningā. i didnāt know back then that there is actually a substance that takes us into an awakened state of consciousness, a state where the mind is offline ā at least for a few minutes ā so we can experience truth directly rather than the distortions and creations of it.
if this calls you, we are having our second edition at the end of the month in portugal. we call it: awakentobeauty.co. earlybird pricing ends today but for the first ten people who register from this newsletter, i will extend it to tomorrow.
itās my deepest desire personally and for all of humanity to awaken to our true nature. we are energetic beings having a bodily and mental experience rather than being bodies with brains that create consciousness. this misunderstanding is single-handedly responsible for all the suffering in the world, including my own one.
the end of all wars
i am looking forward to an awakened future in the not too distant future where we have all experienced this oneness and we treat each other accordingly. this will also be the end of all conflicts and wars ā whether within our own families or on geopolitical level. i cannot think of a more timely moment to start creating this new peace from within by experiencing it for ourselves. one by one we awaken.
we are here in deep service to you to guide you through this sacred initiation whenever you are ready.
that all wars may end.
with love,vincent
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there will be two types of humans: those that are acting from the mind and those that are acting from a higher principle call it love or the heart. based on the current paradigm the world is operating from it might be hard to see where this new human will come from and how it could possibly survive in such an adverse world.
but this is looking at it from the mind and through the current paradigm we are stuck in. one could argue that the current human is on a self destructive path where, while some of us enjoy luxuries and pleasures every day, we are dying slowly and quietly inside.
it all comes back to three question:
* who am i?
* why am i here?
* what do i really want?
human 1.0
if i cannot answer these questions, it is like driving my car without knowing why i am driving, where i am driving to and why i am driving to where i am driving to. yet this is how most of humanity navigates life. and then i die. and so what was the point of it all? there was no point. such a life is meaningless. and thatās the very nagging i might be experiencing everyday.
yes, i make money, i buy stuff, i build stuff, i enjoy myself, i travel, i have sex, i drink, i eat, i have fun. and tomorrow, i choose from this menu again trying to maximise my pleasure and minimise my pain. rinse and repeat until i die. i try and might get better at playing this game but somehow life keeps throwing me curve balls: from the weather and traffic jams to breakups, losses, disease and death.
i want to control it all yet i never succeed at it and so more often than not i am frustrated, depressed, sad, angry, worked up, tired. life is so exhausting. yes, it is because i am playing the game of human 1.0. itās an outdated game i continue to play.
human 1.5
or maybe i am playing the human 1.5 game which is i work on myself, i become conscious of my shadows, patterns and traumas. i might even be on the spiritual path drinking plant medicine, going to retreats, doing breath work, working with shamans and traveling to exotic locations trying the newest and latest. it is because i realised that life gets easier when i let go of the baggage i unconsciously have been carrying around. however, i am still suffering just as the human 1.0. maybe just a little less.
human 2.0
and then thereās the human 2.0. it s an entirely different animal. it looks the same outside but when you get in touch with it i immediately realise thereās something different and i wonder what this human has that i donāt. and i want it! i can see how this human not only has his s**t together but navigates life with such ease and grace that makes me wonder what is his secret.
the human 2.0 has not just understood but experienced that he is not his mind, identity and body. in other words, i am not vincent. vincent is an aspect of me and yes, i experience this life through vincent and my mind identifies with him. but capital I am so much more. (i refers to my perception of self and capital I refers to everything there is which is what I really am.) I am everything and I am nothing because I am beyond the realm of the material world. I created the material world so I can experience myself through it.
capital I
I am you and we are all I. we are all One. I am god, god is I and I is you and everyone else. and as we one by one realise this we as a collective start waking up to a new world, a world of love and understanding, a world of unity, a world where we all understood we are all One, literally. and that there is no death and there is no birth. yes, our individual physical vessels are born and die but these are simply transition moments of the consciousness we are.
and for what that I am, there is no money, there is no ownership, there are no things. I am all that or rather all that is a creation of mine. I is us and everything around and beyond us. I is everything. we are I and I is pure love. I created this world, the whole universe so that I can understand and experience myself. because I is everything, I needed to create separation, i.e. what I am not so I can experience and understand what I am.
what I am not
only by experiencing what I am not I can understand what I am. because before I created the material world and our sense of being separate, there was only I. everything was and everything is still I but I is experiencing itself through me, you and all other eight billion human beings separately but we are One I.
the mind is a formidable creation of I amongst all the other creations that we can see and experience and everything beyond that our limited iās canāt perceive. my mind keeps me in the illusion that i am just vincent. and because i think i am just that, i act like i am just that and so i not only feel separate but i behave like it as well: i want my stuff for myself and i want more of it. and i want more money and i want more pleasure or whatever. i, i, i.
but none of that is relevant because when i die, I remember the consciousness I am and to where I go back to, which is also where I am all the time in parallel and there is no money, there is no time, there is no material world. there is just I. when i die, I remember this was all a game I was playing with myself though i took myself very seriously.
what I am
so this is what I am. and this is why i am here: to remember who I am. and so what do i and I want: to remember. and what does vincent want, wish and work towards: for all of us to remember.
this vincent canāt help but let you know one more time: if you want to meet I for yourself, come to portugal next weekend and have the most profound experience that i know of: understand who you are, why you are here and what you want.
from the bottom of my heart i wish every human being that they remember who they are. itās the most beautiful moment. more beautiful than anything youāve experienced before. itās what we are all secretly yearning for: to be reunited with self, to understand who we are.
i and I - it is a real mindfuck. that is until you experience yourself as I. and all your questions will be answered all at once.
awakentobeauty.co
with love,vincent
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this article is based on a spontaneous instagram live and has been adapted and expanded on for legibility. if you like to watch the original, here it is:
the purpose of life
as we are gearing up for our event awaken to self, i have been reflecting: what is the purpose of life? what are we doing? we're all chasing something, right? we're building companies, building families, building businesses, building our lives. and one day we die ā and that could be very soon or in 40, 50, 60 years and then so what? all of what we have built disappears.
so the question is: what was the purpose of that life? and of course it depends on what you believe. whether you think you're just this body and when this body dies then your existence ends. but from everything i've seen this is not the case. i'm an eternal being. i'm pure consciousness. i'm just experiencing life through this body and it can be either a life of suffering or a life of beauty, awe and surrender. this is what i come ever closer to realise: our existence is nothing what we think it is. we live in an age of ignorance.
the age of ignorance
we have been living in an age of ignorance for a long time and that is what created all this dystopian world that we are moving more and more into. it is because we are stuck in the ego fighting each other, competing with each other, whether it's between countries, businesses, industries, people and even within our very family. our family structures are collapsing. there's no love in this world. and therefore it's a constant fight. but it doesn't have to be that way.
i was just commenting on a post on linkedin about my experience at singularity university and that technology will solve all our problems - and it's b******t. i used to believe that but technology won't solve anything. the only thing that will help us get out of this mess and evolve is raising our consciousness, realising what we truly are and what this experience of life really is about.
based on everything i've learned over the past eight years and especially more recently, life is about learning and growth. all the challenges i encounter are in service of my evolution. everything is a gift, even the most difficult and painful experiences. to the mind this doesn't make any sense because the mind lives from a place of scarcity, ego identity and separation. it just wants to have and be more.
the business, the partner, the money
it wants to feel safer. it wants certainty. and those are the lives we build for. but then i wonder: why am i not feeling it? why am i not happy? i got the business, i got the partner, i got the money, i got everything. so why? maybe i need a bigger business, a bigger house, a more beautiful partner, a more successful partner. but i will still not be feeling it. because this is not how it works, or rather it is how exactly how it works: by looking for it in the external world, the world outside of us, we will never find it.
yet this is what the mind keeps us doing and chasing ā when we live from this very limited place of the mind ā because life is so much more. again, i'm an eternal being. i'm pure consciousness. some people call it god, some people call it source. it doesn't matter what you call it. it's all the same. and there are experiences like the experience we're offering at the end of this month that show you very viscerally and experientially who you are. you don't have to believe anything. you will know what you are with more certainty than knowing your name. and it wonāt be your mind and body.
i am pure consciousness
this has tremendous implications for how to live life. and that's the second part: we will be helping you to ground this realisation into your life. because even once i know i am consciousness and the body is just a vessel through which i experience life temporarily, i am still here in this life, right? i still need to make money, i still need to pay bills, i still need to take care of my family and deal with all the friction of life.
these non-ordinary states of mind, these consciousness-expanding states that help us grasp that we are more than who we think we are, they don't necessarily make it easier to live life if we don't bridge the experience into our everyday life, into this dimension. when i realise that i am more, the purpose of life also changes and it is no longer about resource acquisition and creating dominance in the world but it becomes a much more profound understanding that in the end, this idea of pure consciousness means we are love and love is what we all yearn for.
reconnecting with self
i'm not talking about romantic love, i'm talking about the love for life. this deep and continuous sense of presence, connection, gratitude and awe. i want to feel that every day. everything in life is in service of this realisation that i am more. and the more i can live in this place, the more i experience presence and gratitude. these are not just new age words. this is profound (perennial) wisdom that humanity has established over thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands of years, since we exist.
we just forgot it. when we go to school, school teaches us how the world works ā which has nothing to do with how the world really works. yes, you get some practical skills like math but this connection to inner wisdom is severed shortly after birth when our āeducationā through our parents starts. the āawaken to selfā experience is reconnecting you to your true self which most of us never experienced and never will experience outside of these modalities.
truth vs. needing to be right
and from that place, i can then live life differently. for example, one of my big obstacles is the trauma around money. it has shown up in many ways: i was a banker. it was about having more and more. then i was trading bitcoin and other stuff and made a lot of money and lost a lot of money. then i was coaching charging a lot of money. money was a reflection of self-worth and for me to feel safe.
while money is still part of this game called life ā there's nothing inherently bad about money, the obsession with money and with the ego that wants me to be better, faster, more right, etc. is single-handedly responsible for all the friction in my life and between me and others and the world at large.
when we have an argument around vaccines or covid or any other (controversial) topic we're not engaging in it like āi want to get to the truth and let's debate it to get to the truthā. instead, we're going into every conversation with the need to be right. and thatās the friction that we then experience in life. it is self created. it is self destructive.
killing ourselves
and then i wonder why life is so difficult. yeah, because i am not here to be right. what do i know anyway? i am here to expand, i am here to learn, i am here to grow, i am here to connect and ultimately i am here to love. to love every experience and living from a place of awe and wonder for life. this place exists for every one of us, for every human being. it's a birthright. we've just been out-educated, out-socialized of it. we live in this disconnected world now. when i switch on the tv, which i never do, or when i look at the news, it's all about fear, it's all about competition, it's all about indoctrination, it's all about control. and itās full of lies and half truths.
when someone speaks up against it, they are called a conspiracy theorist, and then they're canceled. people are being canceled and our genders are being confused. all of that is confusing our sense of belonging, community and harmony. that's what we are doing to ourselves: we are killing ourselves, and we are even supporting the process of killing ourselves by not speaking up against it but canceling those that do.
recognising who i am
i hope that the experience we are holding this month helps participants find their purpose ā just like it helped me and so many others. it's a beautiful, a fulfilling thing to understand what you are truly made of and who you are. while i can be a banker or a startup founder itās not who i am:
my calling in this life is to support those that want to be shown who they truly are. itās what i have been seeking for myself and itās therefore what i am here to gift to others. the messenger and the message are the same.
and like that each one of us has a calling, an essence. it is not something you choose. it is something you recognise, you find, you discover: you are who you are. and when you allow your being to be what it is, you will feel all the purpose, meaning and beauty you have been looking for all along. itās all already inside of you. you are coming home.
coming home
if this resonates then i invite you to have a look at the experience we put together. i don't want to market it, i just want to tell you about it and invite you to it because i am deeply passionate about all of us remembering what we are and therefore bring back the world we are all yearning for: one of beauty, love and unity. this is not a utopia but a dream we can all create and live together.
this either calls you or it doesn't. it was my most profound experience. we enhanced it by building it into a beautiful container to allow you to safely and softly land back in this world. if you have any questions, send me a message. i am looking forward to journeying with some of you.
before you go: i can promise you one thing, or you get your money back, that this will be the most profound experience of your life. bar none. and the container in which we embedded the experience is the most supportive and loving one.
as mark twain said:
the two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.
this will be such a day.
with lovevincent
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com -
want to experience your higher self and having the most profound experience of your life? learn about our āawaken to selfā journey at the end of this article.
humanity at crossroads
we are at crossroads. there are two prevalent competing themes in the world:
one of increasing government control/fascism, conformism, so called woke-ness and division on all levels from gender to sexual preferences to affluence to political orientation to narratives. itās the theme of self/ego, separation, conflict, control, power and dominance. the oldest human story there is ā a very un-evolved one.
the other theme is one of awakening, starting to grasp the big picture of the human journey and as a result seeking harmony and collaboration between people and with nature. itās based on the understanding that we are not separate but really one organism experiencing itself through many different players. in this game, we are here to learn and grow with each other. it is a game that doesnāt end with oneās death and therefore i play it very differently.
i have previously attempted to lay out the case (see 61/ the biggest lie) why the evidence is overwhelming that we are more than our mind and bodies and therefore the reason we are here is not only beyond just competing and seemingly winning at the game of life but the opposite: it is about serving the greater self and from this place of service and unconditional self-expression, we find what we are all seeking: love, joy and fulfilment.
what has gone wrong?
the world is the schoolroom of god. our being in school does not make us learn, but within that school is the opportunity for all learning. ā manly p. hall
so how come we are not taking this next step in human evolution and instead are keeping the status quo with wars, poverty, destruction of nature, division and fighting that led us to experiencing both the most affluent world ever (though ever more unequally distributed) but also the most miserable one with people that have everything materially suffering from loneliness, depression, mental and other diseases.
how come so many of us have more of everything than ever yet feel less satisfied? itās the lack of meaning because the only thing that feeds on having more (wealth, power, control, status, sex, ā¦) is the ego and the ego is what separates us from each other. i can feed my fear driven ego that never has enough or i can wake up from this never ending game (thereās never enough) that doesnāt give me what i truly want which is, iād argue, to feel at peace, in harmony, in awe, joy, love and unity.
the challenge is not only in the world of business, politics and geopolitics. these are merely the symptoms of the underlying cause which starts with those supposedly closest to us: our family. the lack of love, support and harmony within the family structure is what ultimately shows up as fighting (in some form or shape) with everyone else for survival, dominance, winning, etc.
the crumbling of the family structure and the lack of individuation from our parents has meant that we are externalising the unconscious battle we are fighting within ourselves. individuation is the process of becoming your independent self without needing the approval of your parents and family members. to be yourself unconditionally, confidently and irrespectively of what others think. to have an adult to adult rather than a parent to child relationship with your parents and your children, once grown up, with you.
liberation through initiation
this used to be achieved through a right of passage, an initiation, once you attained a certain age. indigenous tribes, for example, abandon their young adults in remote nature. if you make it back home you become a man and are treated like one no matter that you will always be the son of someone. you move from a parent to child relationship to an adult to adult relationship. you become one amongst equals. while we still celebrate the passing of one turning 18 or 21, thereās no initiation nor do familial relationship really change. āyou will always be my little boy/girlā¦ā
not only do we stay emotionally dependent, we are also staying a victim. during early childhood, we all get traumatised by our parents no matter how well they mean. these mostly unconscious traumas keep us in a victimhood where we try to make up for our perceived lack in all kinds of ways including that the most successful people are those that have been traumatised enough to have a strong drive to compensate through success but not that much trauma that makes them a criminal (pretty much all the prison population comes from deeply broken families).
our deepest trauma: birth
but it gets wilder: as decades of research by stanislav grof show, our deepest trauma that then informs our behaviour throughout life is formed during the traumatic birth process. it says imho a lot about the level of our consciousness and therefore the problem pointed at at the beginning of this article, that despite all that we know about this topic it is not part of our mainstream understanding of self. watch this outstanding documentary on his life, psychedelics and the origin of our deepest wounds: the way of the psychonaut. itās enlightening.
two paths to navigate life
the conscious person uses the world as a mirror to better understand and master themself. the unconscious person attacks the mirror because they do not realise itās a mirror. ā from the samadhi movie
just like humanity, we individually choose between two possibly life paths: reacting, fighting and trying to dominate and influence/manipulate our environment and the people around us or see everything and everyone around us as a mirror, a reflection that teaches me something about myself.
the first one is the easy, common, mentally and logically instructed path. the one most of us choose because thatās what we are taught and how 99% of the world operates. itās the survival of the fittest path. really, itās an animalistic path. we might look much more evolved than animals and we are good at covering up our motivations but underneath that cover the reptilian mind dominates and acts. as andrew grove, former ceo of intel, titled his autobiography: āonly the paranoid survive.ā
the other path, the path of awakening is the path of taking full responsibility for everything in my life and therefore becoming the empowered creator of it. yes, i can blame my parents for what they have done or lacked doing to me, i can blame my former partner, the government or friends that seemingly let me down ā thatās what i am doing if i am on the first, easy path. but on this second, conscious path i am the creator of my life and i see how everything in my life is here to show me something about myself so i can evolve and expand in my way of being.
from victim to creator
this moves me from a reactive victim to an empowered creator. if have a heated argument, i ask myself what did i do to create this tension? what has been my role in this? this is not about being right or wrong. the opposite: itās about moving beyond right vs. wrong to an understanding of how i need to change and evolve to bring harmony, love, connection, joy or whatever you like to call it into this relationship and life at large. this is the challenging and awakened way of being.
and itās freaking hard. i donāt claim to be able to live up to that, yet. but i am committed to work everyday on becoming better at it, to be wiser. and as i do, i remove dissonance in my life and bring more of the good stuff into it: flow, gratitude, harmony, serendipity, synchronicity and abundance.
tuning myself to higher states
life is not what happens to me, it is what i create from moment to moment starting with my thoughts and attitudes. this is very hard for our logic driven thinking to comprehend. i like to think of it as a tuning fork. i can vibrate on a low frequency carrying all my traumas and wounds as an unconscious victim and living them out with others ā or i can look inside (by taking note of how i respond to others and they respond to me), bring awareness to my issues, work through them and thereby raise my frequency, my way of being. the higher i vibrate, the more i attract other high vibrating "tuning forksā aka humans.
itās about resonance. and it starts with every thought i have. think of everything around you as a giant mirror. itās all there for each of us to become conscious of our ways of being and to elevate myself. and when i do, life gets more beautiful without anything around me needing to change. i feel better and no one has the power to change or take that away from me because i choose how i respond rather than i react unconsciously.
and as each of us starts moving from a victim carrying its wounds to an empowered creator taking full responsibility for everything i experience the world also transforms from one of animosity, competition and war to one of harmony, collaboration and peace. just like that. all i need to do is to transform myself and as i do the world around me transforms.
experience: awaken to self
september 28-30, we will be hosting one-day bufo toad ceremonies in portugal. not only will you get to connect with your higher self, pure consciousness, in this life-changing experience but we will be providing the support to help you translate this experience into tangible insights for your day-to-day life ā during the experience as well as after.
i am joined by a wonderful group of souls including a board-certified psychiatrist, body workers and intuitive healers to help you find your own answers to: who am i? why am i here? how can i experience more love, beauty and peace? how can i make the most of my life? last but not least, it will take place at a breathtaking location.
we have put together all the information on this website: awakentoself.one
if this calls you, message me, fill out the application or join our q&a call on
monday, september 18at 10am pdt, 1pm edt, 6pm uk/pt, 7pm cethereās the zoom registration link.
we will be happy to answer any of your questions.
though the experience is unique to everyone, i have written about mine with the toad here:
with love and gratitude for your presencevincent
ps. before you go, enjoy this powerful be her now 60 seconds reel: heaven surrounds us in every moment. the awaken to self experience may connect you deeper with that truth. ā„ļø
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com -
i am doing something i have not done before: sharing a coaching session where i am the coachee. itās a vulnerable display of my journey and its human struggles. i feel thereās a lot of insights to gain from and thatās why i am sharing it. you get to experience vincent behind the scenes. the video and timestamps are at the bottom of this article.
challenges on the journey
after last weekās newsletter went out, i woke up that morning with anxiety. despite having clarity on the spiritual level the human journey doesnāt get necessarily easier ā that is until it does. so whatās the point of spiritually evolving then? itās about recognising that lifeās journey is about something else than what it seems to be about.
and with that recognition, i then can make changes in my life that allow me to navigate it with more joy, presence, love, serenity, peace and grace. it is moving from the rat race to no more race.
what are we running after anyway? what is the point of having more of something (money, houses, cars, followers, fame, ā¦)? letās assume you have more than you had a year, two or ten years ago. do you feel any better? is your life more fulfilling, more aligned? my explorations continue to teach me that no matter what i achieve or where i get to, the fulfilment i am looking for is not to be found there.
now if i were you, iād think, wonderful, but given that you also seem to experience anxiousness, stress, overwhelm, frustration, grief or whatever emotion is currently present for you, whatās the point of all these spiritual explorations if they donāt make you feel any better?
my response: i am still in a transition stage. i have learnt a lot. i have gained clarity of who i am and why i am here. i understand the purpose of my life. however, i have not done the most important step yet: to fully embody that knowing, to let go of the i i think i am and surrender to the higher realms meaning to not attach, judge and resist what i know to be true.
awareness is one thing, surrender is another
and that is a whole other animal. you could say i have completed phase one of a two-stage process. phase one (awareness) is a prerequisite for step two but step two is a lot harder. i know that it wonāt be hard once i have taken the step but until i do, it seems incredibly hard.
how do i know that? iāve had several experiences that viscerally taught me that. the one that always comes to mind first is me literally stripping naked during an ayahuasca ceremony. i have mentioned this story before so i will keep it short:
i knew i needed to strip naked to move forward. i had extreme resistance to do that. when i finally overcame that resistance and stood there naked, nothing happened. and that was the message and teaching: all the resistance was imaginary, in my head, in my mind. it was an illusion. nothing bad happened but the opposite: i was told that as i stripped naked, the energy in the whole room changed. people felt that something had transformed. (if you like to hear my complete account listen here.)
the life lesson was: there are things i know i need to do. i really donāt want to do them or rather: i feel resistance, fear and i am scared of what could happen if i do. but once i do it, nothing bad happens. it was easy and i feel free, elated and something larger has transformed.
letting go of the self that resists
it is the very same thing with my spiritual journey: what i am here to let go not just in ceremony but in life is the excessive thinking, doing, worrying about what could happen, what others could think, needing to be someone, needing to have a lot, to be successful in the traditional sense, bla bla bla. this is not why i am here and this is why i continue to be on this journey.
there is no escape from who i am and this is imho true for all of us. i didnāt come here to build wealth, to be important, to be safe, to live in convenience, to have a lot, etc. i am here to grow, to expand, to become free to be who i truly am. to be myself. and when i let go of all the beliefs and thinking, i finally can and then i feel the fulfilment, the peace, the presence i have been yearning for all along.
that thing that i am after, whatever it is, is not to be found in the world outside of me. it is not to be found in money, power, sex, fame, achievement, control, certainty, ā¦ it is to be found in me being free to be who i really am and live fully and freely expressed being myself rather than to constantly worry about tomorrow, next year, the next deal, the markets, ā¦ all of that is childhood, societal and cultural conditioning. it is not me.
everything is a gift
every moment i spend thinking is a moment i have not lived, a moment i have not enjoyed. thinking is part of life, part of being human. but i am not meant to think my way through life. i am meant to go through life being myself, being in awe, being in gratitude for all the many things i experience from moment to moment, being in joy, being in love with life for all its richness and diversity no matter whether it rains or the sun shines. everything is a gift.
instead, i worry, i strategise, i play roles, i control, i manipulate, i escape, i disagree, i fight, i need to be right or look good, i argue over money. and then one die i die. so what was all this battling about? nothing. worse: it made my experience of life worse, it stole the joy that life is meant to be from me. but by then the time is over and so it turns into regret.
i could have been so happy, so free, doing what i love, bringing joy to myself and other people, exploring, be grateful yet i chose to worry, fight, argue, hold grudges, ā¦ for what? for nothing and suffering as in not enjoying the ride along the way.
i am the master of my life. i decide whether my life is joyful or not. it has nothing to do with what others say, think or do to me (absent of physical harm). i alone decide how i respond to others and life. you scream at me, ok, you must have had a bad day. you insult me, i guess i trigger something within you. whatever someone does to me, i decide how i respond and that decides how i feel. not how much i have or have achieved.
healing rather than escaping
i am full of unconscious insecurities and they are the reason i am trying to achieve so much ā to make up for what i feel i am lacking. spending a whole life trying to prove i am worthy, i am lovable instead of healing those wounds and then being able to be myself and do what i love rather than what i think i need to do to impress others or achieve ever more wealth.
this is the human plight: i will never find that peace i am looking for by trying to fill an imaginary hole: to plug a lack that is simply a product of my mind. realising this is called doing the work of healing. this is not some new age stuff, it is something that has been forgotten and we are finally starting to remember.
when i realise that i am much more than my body and mind, i realise that everything i think i am i just think i am. i am so much more and this little āiā i perceive to be is just a construct of my mind, itās an imagination that feels very really but is not. it is simply here for me to explore, learn from, grow with and ultimately transcend it.
as long as i try to understand this with my mind, i will fail because the mind is the very thing that is asking to be transcended. i cannot understand something by using that very thing. and i most definitely cannot transcend this something using that very thing. this something, my mind, is what needs to let go of wanting to understand and control. the place i am meant to be in is beyond the mindās grasp.
paradise is already here ā just not in my mind
and thatās the very thing i am working on. clearly, i am still using my mind to think about life. not so much when i am writing these lines, they just flow out of me, but when i wake up anxiously in the morning worrying about what i am doing and what i am not doing but āmeant to doā.
as i am writing these lines i remember what i am here for: to first and foremost help and liberate myself from the stranglehold of my very limited mind changing the paradigm from a world of āme firstā thinking, fighting, worrying and competing to a world of me being embodied harmony and presence with those around me, bringing joy to myself and the world and experiencing the awe and richness of all that life is. what a beautiful world that will be.
below you find a conversation i had the day i published the last newsletter with one of my guides around my anxiety, my frustrations, my stuckness and all the very challenges i experience on this journey. itās a humbling display of how i am still very much part of the human drama. one that i am fully committed to and working on every day to leave in the not-too-distant future. just not yet.
how can i serve you?
my lifeās purpose is to explore and to serve others. it is also what brings me most joy. how can i support you? letās jump on a call and explore (email me or pick a convenient time here). i know you can propel yourself forward beyond your wildest imagination. your innate potential is limitless.
prefer exploring as a group? join me and others on todayās
wednesdayās weekly awakening circle at 10am pdt, 1pm edt, 6pm uk/pt, 7pm cethereās the zoom link.
looking forward to connecting with you.
reality check: vincent being coached
want to have an inside look of my struggles on the journey? it feels very vulnerable to share this and i feel it is in service of my mission, my purpose and possibly you. there are plenty of teachings in those 54 mins. so here you go. the juice is especially in the second half. we cover:
* 1ā being incongruent ā spiritual vs earthly life
* 4ā revisiting the same issue over and over again
* 7ā being tired of the human experience
* 12ā controlling vs. releasing
* 16ā feeling āimpotentā
* 18ā family, love and acceptance
* 22ā my inner child āmumiā
* 24ā donāt fight the ego
* 25ā the biggest lie ā reflections
* 28ā making tough choices on the path
* 31ā neoslife: our vision for the future
* 34ā reflecting where i am at
* 36ā falling in love
* 40ā wanting to be in control
* 41ā ceremonies: ātelling the mind to go f**k itselfā
* 44ā soul vs mind battle: donāt fight the ego
* 47ā just get started ā donāt wait for perfection
* 50ā letting go ā my 5meo experience
* 51ā love ā the end of thinking
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com -
this might be the craziest email youāve ever received ā and the most life-changing one: what if i could prove that you are not who you think you are? how would that impact your life and the choices you make? it would change everything. this is such a once in a lifetime message. this is no hyperbole. this is about a revolution in consciousness ā the most important revolution ever.
who is me?
my name is vincent. iām 45 years old. iām male, single. i coach, i write, i think, reflect and explore life and what it means to be human. but am i really? if you strip me of my name, age and occupation i am still me. if you remove all my limbs, even my entire body and just keep my brain alive, i am still me. even without any senses like sight or hearing, i am still me. and if i had amnesia or alzheimer and forgot who i am, i would still be me. so who is me?
clearly, i am not my body as without it i am still me. clearly, i am not my memory as without i am still me. when i am in a coma, i am still me. so when do i stop experiencing myself as me? at death? not so fastā¦
what happens after death?
you might think we donāt know what happens after death but we do know what happens when you die ā and then come back: so called near-death experiences are well documented. donāt believe me? check out this youtube channel with more than a hundred detailed accounts. this is not scientific? check out this documentary exploring the phenomenon through scientists who have died and come back. i personally know four people who had near-death experiences.
near-death experience is a misnomer: people donāt nearly die. they are dead and then they are alive again. often science cannot explain how they were able to come back without lasting damage, e.g. drowning for 30 mins without oxygen. that is because science is as handicapped as we are in our understanding of self.
not only remember death survivors what happened once they had died, they are also able to recount what people said and did whether they were in proximity to their body or in other locations, and a lot more: they describe meeting other beings, feeling infinite love and peace, learning about the purpose of their lives, talking with ancestors, etc. how is this possible?
belief vs truth ā shifting paradigms
why does all of this sound unlikely, crazy or even impossible to most? because it doesnāt fit our current narrative of how the world works. but what if that narrative is as broken as our previous belief that the earth is at the center of our solar system and the universe. copernicus was executed for pointing out the truth. nowadays, the world is a little bit more civilised: scientists just get ignored, unfunded, discredited and canceled.
true science has been replaced by scientism which is dogmatic and allows scientific advances only within the prevailing worldview. science like most of the world has become dogmatic and politicised ā it serves a larger agenda of keeping us asleep.
the reason why it is so hard for us to believe that we could be more than our material existence is that most of us have never experienced their true self or if we have we dismiss it as a hallucination. therefore, we keep looking at the world through the mind which is the very thing that keeps us imprisoned in the illusion.
what is consciousness?
consciousness is the awareness that while i am alive in human form experiences itself through my body. this consciousness survives death because the body and the material world is a product of it and not the other way around. that is why people having ānear-death experiencesā describe a world after death that maps across individual experiences.
i donāt need to die to experience this truth myself. earlier this year, i wrote about the journey of experiencing the pure consciousness i am, that we all are:
before and after this i had a number of other experiences that taken together with what spiritual sciences have known for eons and what modern science is finally arriving at (see below), i now have the certainty of knowing that i am simply experiencing myself through this body and mind. and this changes everything.
the illusion of self
i am pure consciousness. our collective consciousness has dreamed up this world, this universe and everything material in it. at the same time, we are experiencing our self-created illusion from within, through the avatar/body we have dreamed up (itās a little bit more complicated but letās keep it simple for now).
we are both the witness of the movie (consciousness) as well as the experiencer and actor in it (our human self). the trouble is that we have forgotten who we truly are and are confusing our dreamed up material self as our real and only self.
the vincent i identify as, is on one hand very real but heās not who i ultimately am. vincent will die but i wonāt die. vincent has a preference for sunny days, the freedom to do what he wants when he wants, to avoid pain and discomfort and instead likes to experience joy and pleasure all the time.
my higher/consciousness self does not care about the above. it is simply here to have an experience, to express its true self unconditionally and grow and expand with that. it is not afraid of uncomfortable even adverse experiences because from its vantage point thereās no good or bad itās simply all experience. in fact, pain is one of most powerful enablers of growth and transformation ā it forces higher evolution.
how is this understanding relevant for my day to day life?
waking up from playing the wrong game
no matter how i play this game of life, life keeps throwing me curve balls. no matter how hard i try and how far iāve made it in life, i canāt obtain the certainty and control in life that my survival-driven mind craves.
while vincent would like to lock in all the good stuff and live happily ever after he continues to experience disagreements, disappointments, obstacles, conflicts, fears, anxieties, etc. ā he obviously fails at controlling his world. yet this is what we are all continuously trying and failing at ā and the reason for our suffering, nagging, dissatisfaction, stress, overwhelm, burnout or however you experience it.
as buddha said: all life is suffering. but it doesnāt have to be that way. what buddha actually meant is that
suffering is simply the absence of divine joy. so long as we place importance on the fleeting experiences of the physical world, we will continue to suffer. ā source
divine joy, joyfulness, peace, beauty or whatever you are yearning for is available to you, me and all of us all the time, right now and forever. all i have to do is to let go of the idea how things need to be for me to be happy and i can be happy all the time.
it really is that simple and yet even with having the awareness of this it seems hard to live from that place of continuous serenity. the reason is the egoic, limited illusion of self. if i believe i am just my biological self then i will continue to be limited by its premises of needing and wanting to be more.
however, once i realise i am more than my body, that i am pure consciousness and that even physical death wonāt kill me, i am free to be my true self as i can let go of the shackles of my limited self and all the garbage beliefs that come with it. this doesnāt happen overnight but it can happen very quickly. and it is what we are all meant to rise up to:
being yourself always (in) all ways
as i am typing these lines i feel the freedom i have been looking for all these many years in my search for the truth: to be myself unconditionally, to share these truths without hesitation and to not worry about the future because i know it is all unfolding in divine order. and even if not: i am a soul, an infinite energetic being. nothing can kill me so i might just be and express my true self rather than who i think i need or should be. itās liberating.
how did i get this confident and clear about my larger self? after eight years of seeking, the three things that ultimately empowered me were:
* self inquiry and contemplation: the continuous questioning of my perceptions, beliefs and the nature of who i am. this is largely a mental process supported by absorbing content related to that matter (e.g. scientific, psychological and spiritual texts and reflections) and working with coaches and guides that mirrored back to me what was hard for me to see by myself.
* meditation and silence: to experience my true self i have to move beyond the mind because the mind is the very creator of the illusionary me. both meditation and prolonged silence and stillness empower the recognition that i am more than my body and thoughts.
* non-ordinary states of mind: the conscious use of entheogens (psychedelics) as well as holotropic breath work is the most rapid and powerful tool to get instant access to oneās higher dimensions. however, glimpses of higher reality alone are usually not sufficient for sustained change and continuous higher awareness.
entheogens for awakening
nature has gifted us with these incredible substances for a reason: so we can reawaken to our higher selves and move beyond the perceived limitations of our small minded minds and bodies.
while it might be easy to dismiss these experiences as hallucinations, it is impossible to do so once youāve properly experienced them. so how come not everyone is talking about this and it is not common knowledge and practice? i believe there are at least these three reasons:
* the mindās grip on our limited reality is very pervasive and therefore despite the life-changing nature of these experiences people can go back to their lives as if nothing has happened. it doesnāt help that everything around you is still the same after such an experience so you fall back into they way you have been living with the same habits, worries and fears. change requires more than just awareness: willpower and action. as jack kornfield puts it: āafter the ecstacy, the laundryā ā the real work begins afterwards.
* people keep these experiences to themselves because just like many less understood phenomena, others might ridicule them, discredit or even cancel them. itās easier to keep quiet about it. it doesnāt help that taking such substances is usually illegal ā despite that what is illegal and what is bad for you have nothing to do with each other. often, itās the opposite. however, just like with science, the dogma and taboos are deeply entrenched and serve the agenda to keep us asleep.
* the experience can be so otherworldly that one might struggle to bridge them with this reality. letās say i know i am pure consciousness but i still have to pay my mortgage and get the kids to school. as they say: before enlightenment: chop wood and carry water. after enlightenment: chop wood and carry water. psychedelic experiences won't change your life but they have the power to change your relationship with life. and that is their real purpose: to stop resisting the flow of life and thereby find joy, meaning and peace in its unfolding no matter how it unfolds.
what is science saying?
science is at last arriving at the same conclusion given that its current models fail to explain consciousness and the universe. listen to donald hoffman (here and here), professor emeritus of cognitive sciences at the university of california at irvine who does āresearch on consciousness, mathematical models of consciousness, and how physics and spacetime might arise from a theory of consciousness that's completely mathematically precise.ā
what does he mean? he is working on developing a model and thereby proving that consciousness is the foundation of the universe rather than space-time, i.e. that the material world and therefore everything we see on earth including us is a product of consciousness first rather than consciousness being a product of the brain.
i highly recommend watching the whole āawakening mindā documentary which features scientist and spiritual teachers who have awakened to that reality. this reality of consciousness being the foundation for everything is undeniable. most of the world has simply not yet woken up to it. if you concur then you are one of the early members of this club of newfound freedom.
still unconvinced? listen to dr. eben alexander, md, neuroseurgeon, death survivor and previous sceptic and others for a few mins here.
thereās so much more
thereās so much more iād like to share with you. in fact, i have written various versions of this article never satisfied with how i was bringing those points across. i will continue to work on bringing more clarity to this subject so that we can all one day life from this place of clarity that we are so much more, that there is really nothing to fear and therefore experiencing the freedom of being your (true) self always all ways.
this is the only conversation i am interested in because from where i stand, this is the only relevant conversation. once we all know who we are, there will be no more suffering on this planet and love and understanding will connect us all. this might sound like utopia but it really is just one āconsciousā step away. all it takes is for us, one by one, to wake up and walk out from the truman show into full reality.
a lack of consciousness and the perpetual confusion and lies of being just your limited bodily self is the mother of all problems on this planet. once we successfully addressed it by waking up all the problems we are dealing with will solve themselves because they are derivatives of our scarcity driven mindset.
want to dive deeper?
if you are curious to explore these topics and your higher self further, i invite you to my newly created awakening circle: a weekly zoom call where we explore this topic across all angles ā theoretically, practically, scientifically, spiritually and personally. i invite you to discuss with me, challenge me, share your perspectives and for us to explore how to arrive at this truth and how to embody it in our day to day lives against all the challenges we encounter.
this is the work i am committed to do for the rest of my life: to help us as a species to awaken to our true being and power. i like to think of the awakening circle as an early iteration of neoslife ā the new earth operating system for life.
join me this wednesday at 10am pdt, 1pm edt, 6pm uk/pt, 7pm cet on zoom for an informal explorative conversation around the nature of consciousness ā itās free and it will be fun:
unsure? send me a message with your questions.
this is what a client had to say about the one-day workshop working with me across the topics of consciousness, understanding of self, expansion, healing and life purpose. it will give you an idea of the personal empowerment of this type of conversation. one day i hope this is the conversation the whole world is having.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com -
in this newsletter:
* immortality through awakening ā the evolution we are meant to go through
* the heart protocol journey ā meet your true self in july
* integrating your experience ā how to bring insights from psychedelic journeys into your daily life
* the historic role of psychedelics in the evolution of humanity ā and their role in our future survival
interested in the heart protocol and/or my integration offering, please read here:
if you die before you die, you wonāt die when you die. ā the immortality key
we are afraid of death and thereby we are afraid to fully live but once you realise what you truly are, the fear starts to dissipate and life turns from a struggle into a gift that is the journey of waking up to your true self.
when renaissance artist michelangelo was asked about the difficulties that he must have encountered in sculpting his masterpiece david he unassumingly replied:
it is easy. you just chip away the stone that doesnāt look like david.
i now recognise this is what i have been doing all these years and itās the work we are all meant to do: chipping away at what we are not so we can be our true selves. in my specific case, this even expressed itself by me feeling both resistance to and the need to strip naked twice in (ayahuasca) ceremonies. donāt worry, i have never seen anybody else strip naked.
i now understand that it was simply a metaphor of my soul asking me to let go of everything i am not. the journey of ābecomingā myself is one of removing all that i am not because from its perspective i am not my mind, personality and the things i own or surround myself with (aka my life and lifestyle). i am not what my ego defines itself as.
i am a soul that uses this body to have an experience on this planet. and once i viscerally experienced that, the fear of death and fears of not being enough or not having enough started falling away. it marks the beginning of the end of all fears and the start of confidence, clarity and the freedom to express myself fully and authentically.
experience immortality
we must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing, a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use. ā plotinus
next month, the heart protocol is coming back to portugal. i had a profound experience when first experiencing it in april this year. i touched upon it in this recent newsletter (57/ 5-meo-dmt: experiencing full Reality)
whether you are looking for a higher-level understanding of yourself and life or a breakthrough, the heart protocol has been one of the most profound and at the same time gentle experiences i have gone through: thereās no physical purging, you donāt need to travel to south america and your journey takes place in the comfort of a private room and bed.
dr. samuel lee, md (sam) is a board-certified psychiatrist and has developed the heart protocol by looking for an answer to navigate his own challenges and help those of his patients and clients. in his words:
out of 10+ years of practicing western psychiatry, serving as the medical director of a holistic health program, and exploring all different kinds of plant medicines and therapies, i can honestly say that this protocol has the potential to catalyse healing and growth more than any other physical modality Iāve encountered thus far. ā dr. samuel lee
the heart protocol is the combination of two psychoactive substances: mdma which opens the heart and lets you experience the full love for yourself, life and everyone around you; and ketamine which shuts down the narrating monkey mind and lets you experience pure consciousness without the nagging chatter. together they enable you to experience your true, soul being and bring clarity on how to solve your lifeās challenges.
the journey
words cannot do these types of experiences justice. and thatās the very power and purpose of them: to reframe your reality into a more open and healthy way to help you get out of the blinders and limitations of your current thinking, self-perception and beliefs.
to give the wanting-to-know mind something to feed on, i will share the structure of the program. if this subsequently piques your interest, fill out the form here and we hop on a phone call to explore whether this is the right time for you.
you will meet dr. sam at noon in a home in the beautiful surroundings of sintra, portugal. you will journey by yourself or together with up to two other participants (depending what option you prefer). the journey starts around 3pm which you will enjoy in the comfort and privacy of your own bedroom.
you will be lying comfortably in your bed with an eye mask, headphones playing music and a microphone recording your reflections during the journey on your phone. the latter is unique to this format and extremely valuable as you will have a transcript of all the realisations you had during the experience which you can then refer to in the days, weeks, months and years after this experience. this will be a powerful tool in helping you to implement the insights into your day-to-day.
during the journey, sam (and i, if youād like me there) will keep checking in on you as little or as much as you would like. some participants appreciate a continuous accompanying as i did for the person in the picture at the beginning of this article. others like to be by themselves just with the occasional check-in that you are doing fine.
the journey will last between three to four hours. as you slowly come out of it, you will have the option to stay in your room to journal, to go for a walk in nature or to meet us and other participants to talk and enjoy some food if you are hungry. you will spend the evening in whatever way calls and supports you the most. you will then spend the night at the property.
in the morning, you will have breakfast followed by an integration session where you can share with, if you like, other participants and us your experience and where we give you suggestions and reflections on your journey and what to do next.
that concludes the in-person part of the heart protocol with dr. sam.
integration ā bringing what youāve learnt into your life
the psychedelic journey will remove the veil and open your eyes to the illusions you have been holding about your life. or to put it in platoās terms of the cave allegory, you will exit the cave and experience the true nature of things and yourself.
the psychedelic journey is the exciting, the eye-opening part. however, the real work starts after which is to bring meaning to the experience and to make changes to your life as a result ā otherwise what would be the point of it besides the novelty factor?
the purpose of such journeys is to help us get out of our mental prison and learn to live authentically and transform the way we look at and go through life ā who we are being and how we are showing up. as a result, life will be more joyful, effortless and beautiful. that is the gift.
as i like to say, the journey opens the veil but the real work is to keep it and ourselves open and transformed without going back to the old ways of being and doing things. that requires effort because, despite a life changing experience, we are creatures of habit and back at the office on monday, it will be easiest to keep doing what you have always done.
to help you with this, i am offering to spend the subsequent 24 hours with me. based on my experience, this will involve reflecting on your experience, reviewing your transcript and helping with the interpretation and concrete action steps for when you go back home, bodywork including an energy wash-out (a trauma and emotional conflict releasing technique by my teacher dr. nader butto), exploring of your gene keys and life purpose as well as any other subjects that might be relevant to you.
most importantly, i will sit and be there for you and whatever you need. i will hold a powerful container for you to explore safely where to go next. you will have access to me, my whole toolkit and my mind and heart and we will explore what serves you best.
the money conversation
these types of experiences provided by the right people (meaning with the sole purpose of serving you rather than profiting from you) are priceless because they are positively life-changing. for both sam and i this is a labour of love and our contribution to help you and the world to awaken so that life will be more beautiful for you, your loved ones and everyone around you.
sam is offering the heart protocol experience for ā¬3,333 including the overnight stay divided by the number of participants. so itās ā¬1,111 to ā¬3,333 depending on whether you want a private experience or to share it with up to two others. if all you want is a journey with him than thatās the total investment plus your journey to portugal.
if you like me to accompany or spend an integration day with you, we will explore this over the phone. as i have laid out in my beyond coaching manifesto, my service is no longer driven by money and hence i will support anybody who is serious about this work irrespective of your financial means. together, we will determine what you need and what you can and want to contribute financially.
i am bringing the work of sam to your attention because his protocol is extremely potent and he has done deep work in developing it. i have no gain in promoting his work. my calling is to make this work accessible to more people in a safe and beautiful setting and use it as a springboard to help you transform your life for the better. from where i am at this is the only way how we will evolve as humanity beyond our reptilian self-destructive brain.
the role of psychedelics in human evolution
unbeknown to most, psychedelics have been used since the dawn of time to help us in our evolution and in raising our consciousness. they go back to the time since we became settlers and started agriculture. ergot is the mold that would āinfestā wheat with a psychedelic effect.
funny side story: the german reinheitsgebot brewing was likely motivated to prevent this psychedelic effect from appearing in beer ā which would occur if the wheat was not stored in a particular way. as long as psychedelics existed there has been a war of removing them from our access not to protect us but rather to prevent us from awakening. why? because awake people ask questions and are harder to control individually and as a society as a whole. but this is for another article.
if you like to dive into the history of psychedelics since the dawn of humanity, i highly recommend the following talk by brian muraresku new york times best-selling author of āthe immortality key: the secret history of the religion with no nameā. he researched and proved the use of psychedelics back to ancient greek and roman times. itās a fascinating and eye-opening talk.
i have been holding the view that our awakening (supported by psychedelics) is the only way for us to navigate the new brave world of ai without the risk of destroying ourselves. something i hope to explore in more depth in a future newsletter. for now, please enjoy his reflections. if you are only interested in this aspect (and not the history of psychedelics), start watching at minute 33.
last but not least
sam will be here offering journeys for up to 3 people per day from july 13 to 31. his experience is both powerful and popular. if this is something that interests you, please click here where i am sharing more information about his journey and my offering to help you integrate it.
if not this time then i hope you will have the opportunity in the future to explore your higher self, the nature of the universe and the miracles of life that will transform your understanding of self, why you are here and empower you to be the best version of yourself. i believe this to be everyoneās birthright if they so wish.
with love and in service of your higher self,
vincent
and hereās a beautifully uplifting song for you ā currently my favourite (especially the second half):
spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me
take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
and my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my saviour
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com -
if the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed. ā terence mckenna
how truly free are you? in spite of all the money and success, do you feel overworked, stressed, exhausted, anxious, worried, low or even depressed? do you find yourself always busy, always running, always clamouring for the next big whatever, always competing to be ahead of whatever trend or technology, always thinking about your next move, always working on becoming more successful, wealthy, important, loved or valued and never ever feeling you have arrived?
after seven years on the investment banking floor and six years in brazil as a founder and ceo battling with startup life including a co-founder breakup, i thought there must be a better, more peaceful, more joyful and more fulfilling way of living. so in 2015, i set out to find it.
on this journey i striped naked literally and metaphorically, i let go of everything, i made and lost a fortune, had a panic attack and thoughts of going insane, explored altered states of consciousness (ayahuasca, breathwork, meditation, mushrooms, ketamine, dmt, ā¦), no longer knew who i was, pushed my body to its limits, was in complete silence for weeks, stopped drinking, stopped partying, stopped socialising, stopped having sex, became a hermit and lived in seclusion and even got punched by a friend in the process, ā¦ all in the search for finding the answer, the truth about life.
what can i tell you? there truly is a place of continuous peace, serenity and being in love with life. and it is available to every one of us. as humans we are designed to discover and evolve into it. so much emphasis is put on finding āthe answerā but only in the journey we discover our own process of returning to our innate peaceful center. itās a beautiful process. itās the process of waking up.
rebirth: meeting your true self
your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. ā carl jung
this summer, iām inviting eight people on a journey to explore the depth of their being, the meaning of their life and to do the work to come into complete harmony with their existence.
in leadership it is said āthe work of the one is the work of the manyā. we will journey together as a group as well as individually one on one. we will work across body, mind and soul. this is the most powerful, beautiful and profound work there is. it is sacred work. it is why we are here.
this journey will encompass the breadth and depth of what i have learnt, experienced and experimented with during my eight years of seeking compressed into a six-month experience ā minus all the snake oil i came across; and thereās quite a bit of that out there. i know of no other program that comes even close to its comprehensiveness, depth, impact and level of transformation. itās the program i have been looking for and the culmination of all my work.
in any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety. ā abraham maslow
will you have to strip naked? i donāt think so, except if that is what you want. you yourself will discover and choose what it is you need to do to get to where you want to be. you alone decide how far you want to venture and how deep you want to explore your being and the secrets of life. itās a beautiful and empowering process. and you are the pilot of it. we, as your team of guides, will provide you with a challenging yet safe, loving and supportive playground to meet and explore your true nature and self.
being happy, authentic and in harmony is your birthright and the most natural way of being. that is, after you have stripped off all the layers you are not, the layers you have taken on unconsciously over the decades of playing a role rather than authentically expressing yourself. think of every time you said or did something just to please others. being you is not a process of becoming but one of chipping away at what you are not.
we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them. ā albert einstein
moving through life without a nagging mind is possible. never-ending thinking, strategising and mental exhaustion will give way to feeling the ever-present flow and beauty of life. expressing who you are fully and unconditionally allows you to become the best version of yourself leaving a legacy more beautiful than you could ever have imagined and without needing to change who you are on the outside: banker, founder, ceo or whatever you are.
when all of your facets come together and are expressed as the one true you, everything changes. you will recognise how you are the creator of everything in your life, the great, the good and the ugly. and from that place of complete ownership, you can create whatever life you want free from the shackles of what you thought you needed to do or be.
when you are in full alignment authentically expressed, you enter a room, no word needs to be spoken and everybody knows who you are. ā my coach
my journey has taught me thereās nothing more liberating than being free to be who i was always meant to be thereby moving from ordinary to being extraordinary. this is your birthright. we are meant to evolve. thatās why you are here. and then that nagging will cease to be.
you will start 2024 as a new human being, one that is closer to your truth than you have ever been. you will be more blissful, happy and grateful than you have ever been. you will be present with life, in peace with what is and do your greatest work with clarity and courage. and you will touch and change the lives of everyone around you.
if this is you and you are a leader or person of influence, please reply to this email and i will connect with you in person.
not me butā¦
due to the high-touch nature of this program, i can only take eight on this journey this year. i am therefore focused on empowering those whose work touches many others.
if this is not you (yet) but you would like to participate, please let me know and i will put you on top of the list for the experiences in 2024.
if this is not you but you know someone who could be a great fit, please reach out to me. as a thank you, you will receive a generous referral award if he or she ends up participating in this or next yearās program. more details in person.
last but not least
this is not a marketing email. this is an invitation. this program is not for the faint of heart. we will go to the edge of your understanding of self and beyond. but what awaits the brave, the explorers willing to venture beyond where most people go is the freedom to finally be yourself. to be a version of you you did not know existed but that was waiting, nagging to come to life all your life.
the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. ā mark twain
this journey is for those that want to experience nothing less than the full magnificence of life and are willing to go to great lengths to find it. as with all (inner) work, you get out of it what you put in. this is for those of you that want to go all-in, no backdoors, support each other in the process and reap the priceless rewards of this work.
and if you do, i promise you from the bottom of my heart that nothing you have experienced in life so far will even come close to it. no matter what you have done or explored before, this will be another level. there is no other program like this one.
to clarify: yes, this program will involve psychoactive substances which will allow you to access places that would otherwise require a lifetime of work. however, the biggest part of this program is the integration of these experiences into your daily life. i have witnessed countless people doing endlessly medicine work without being able to make meaningful changes to their lives and therefore miss out on the well-being, happiness and fulfilment that the insights were meant to provide them with.
you can only meet others as deeply as youāve met yourself. ā my adaption of a quote by matt kahn
meaningful integration work is lacking in nearly all experiences and that will be the focus of this program: how to bring what you have learnt back into your day-to-day life. how you show up minute by minute with your partner, spouse, co-workers and co-founders, friends, children, parents and yourself defines how you feel and experience life. this is the Great Work. and the work that few choose to do.
how congruent are you and can you express it authentically 24/7 365? together we will hold each other accountable and thereby empower the greatest results. this is why this journey is not for everybody but for those that are peak performers already and are truly committed to go to the next level.
a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. ā from the tao te ching
this journey is not about me teaching you. i donāt have your answers. this is an invitation to a journey where you will find your own answers. answers that you did not know existed within you. this is an academy for the pure-hearted. until you clean up your inner environment and pursue purity, you will not be able to embody and reap the benefits of the highest version of yourself ā itās a dividing line.
this is what integration means: can you live your truth from moment to moment? you will become familiar with the tools and techniques to empower your greatest self. and the group, i and the other guides will hold a powerful mirror to each of us in this process. this is what makes this program different than any other.
will you have to go to the jungle or drink ayahuasca? no. will you have to travel? yes. while the majority of the program will take place online, you will have to travel twice to a european location later this summer.
all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. ā blaise pascal
besides all the inner work, we will be exploring adjacent topics that touch our earthly existence including physical health, wealth/money/finance, artificial intelligence and societal developments amongst others. always with the question in mind: what is my role and duty in this world, where do i want to take it to and who do i need to be as a leader?
now, if youāve made it this far, hereās a song for you that captures this work:
i am deeply humbled to journey with some of you this year.
with gratitude, love and excitement for what is to come,
vincent
the universe is not outside of you. look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are. ā rumi
want to learn more about me and my work?
who i am and the genesis story of this workwhat it means to be human - podcastwhat i am learning ā (this) newsletter what i am building ā neoslife what i am offering ā coaching
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in the last two months, i had the two most profound and life-changing experiences of my life. yes, a lot of superlatives here. before those, that had been last yearās ayahuasca experience which i described here. however, these recent experiences took it to a whole new level: i got to meet the real āmeā, twice.
on april 15, i experienced the heart protocol, a combination of two psychoactive substances that, over a multiple hours long journey, catapulted me into nothingness where i experienced being pure consciousness and saw how this consciousness, which we are all made of, created step by step the universe, our planet, humans and then, pufff, consciousness became i or rather consciousness started experiencing itself through me. and then i disintegrated and looped back into being pure consciousness/nothingness/just thought.
words, of course, cannot capture nor do it justice. this is a realm beyond words. you gotta experience it to grasp it. it was a very visceral, visual and real experience that i am not who i think i am. i saw how the conscious me is a construct of the unconscious me which is pure consciousness which is the stuff we are all made up of. itās the inverse of what we commonly believe: consciousness is not a product of the brain but rather our whole personality, physical being and the brain are creations of consciousness. through the body, we simply experience ourselves as this very limited flesh and bones expression of ourselves.
itās one thing to abstractly believe or contemplate this, itās an entirely different thing to experience it so real that it becomes truth. to see how every thought of mine creates the reality i am experiencing in real-time rather than - what we widely believe - our thoughts simply responding to the reality outside of us. there is no outside of us, there is just consciousness. oneness got a whole new meaning for me: everything is consciousness. it was a challenging and intense but equally beautiful and empowering experience. itās intense to cease to exist as myself.
if that wasnāt enough, exactly a month later to the day, i found myself experiencing 5-meo-dmt: the strongest psychedelic known to man. some call it the god molecule. itās a specific form of dmt that can either be extracted from a particular bufo toad, thatās why it is often referred to as bufo (although most bufo toads do not carry this molecule), or it can be created synthetically.
both of these experiences found me without looking for it - through friends that felt this might be something for me. this is how it usually happens: these experiences find me although undoubtedly i am calling them in unconsciously because the real me, my soul, needs them to show me something that the human me still has to understand.
the heart protocol was something i never had heard of before but bufo had been on my āto do at some pointā list. both came at exactly the right time and order. i feel these experiences build on top of each other. last yearās ayahuasca experience opened the door to a new realm for me. these two recent ones expanded on it.
the most incredible experience of my life
5-meo-dmt: the most incredible experience of my life bar none. how can i do this experience justice? i canāt. this was even beyond my wildest imagination. ten days later as i am writing these lines i am pulled back into the experience:
i am standing in the middle of a living room. in front of me stands one of my guides holding a pipe. behind me stands another guide and to the right is a friend watching us all. i am pulling in the smoke from the pipe where the crystalized dmt is being burnt to vapor. i am filling my lungs with as much smoke as i can and holding it in for as long as i can. a few seconds pass and i start losing consciousness. i fall back and my guide catches me and lays me on the bedding on the floor. i donāt remember any of this but i have a video of it happening.
as i am leaving my body, i find myself in nothingness. there is no more vincent nor any physical world, it is just me and pitch-black nothingness. similar to the heart protocol, as i start thinking, i start creating and i find myself in mental loops that become increasingly intense. i feel trapped in my own world, the world of my thoughts that is creating my experience in real-time. it is very fast and instant. negative thoughts are creating negative experiences and i find myself in pretty unnerving places.
i feel i am going crazy. i feel i am not coming back to this world. i am looping ever faster in the world of my thoughts. itās very intense and unnerving and there is no escape from my thoughts. it feel like i am trapped here forever. i feel i want to throw up, throw myself up, get out of this experience. i want to get out of my body, out of this experience. it is too much to bear. itās so intense and with every thought i am digging myself deeper into it. itās like i am biting my own tail and eating ever more of myself only then to wanting to throw myself up.
i am being presented with my own b******t. i feel how my thoughts are choking me. it becomes so overwhelming, i canāt take it anymore. i rather die. in that moment, i say: yes, i am not ready to let go (of this material illusion and the stories i tell myself about life and myself). with these words spoken, i surrender, i let go of holding on because i just canāt anymore, iām exhausted. i canāt fight anymore. my body relaxes and i surrender to the universe and whatever it wants to do with me.
and then, my whole body is flooded with love with a love that i have never experienced before. itās overwhelmingly beautiful. this must be divine love. i feel i am in paradise. itās like a symphony. and with that, my heart is filled with love and it grows and it gets bigger and bigger and it becomes a huge sun and that sun is swallowing up everything, the whole world. itās the most beautiful end. a happy end. the end.
hereās a voicemail to a friend capturing my experience (listen to it at 1.5x):
i slowly open my eyes. i am still tripping and my vision hasnāt returned to normal. everything is buzzing and vibrating. i look at the people around me and reach out to them. i want to feel them, i want to touch them, i want to connect with them. i feel so much gratitude and love. i feel so blessed. how lucky am i that i get to experience this love and clarity about who i truly am.
who knew that from the investment banking floor my seeking journey would ultimately lead me to this living room floor experiencing the truth about life and divine love. you might think i am crazy but i can tell you if you experience what i just had, everything changes.
the universe is pure consciousness, we all are, and we are here on earth to remember this and the path to it is love. not to think, worry or strategise but to live from the heart, from a deeper knowing of who i am and what i am here to do. to follow our calling and dreams because thatās why we are here. and to live with joy and deep gratitude because thereās nothing to fear. we are pure consciousness. itās all just an experience until we return home.
what does it all mean?
the thinking mind is here to keep me surviving. but i am not here to just survive, i am here to thrive and the answer to how to do that was very clear: to live from the heart, from this deeper intuitive knowing of who i am and what i am here to do. to not hold back but to be unapologetically fully and authentically expressed. not to think about what i need to do or say but to feel and connect with what i yearn to be and do (which is what i actually am) and then trust that it will all work out beautifully.
my particular journey is one of exploring the edge of consciousness and then share what i encounter with others and support them on their journey if they so wish. that is me. iām not a banker. iām an explorer and servant of consciousness. and the way to do this is from a place of joy and love. to feel love, i need to be love.
the mind cannot grasp what is really going on. itās trapped in its limitation of what it can perceive through its senses and what it has experienced so far. living from the mind is living from the past and thereby standing in my own way. when i live from a trusting, open, curious and loving place, life and the universe will take care of me and create a life wildly beyond what my mind could ever imagine. that was the loud and clear message from my experience and a blessing to experience.
since my 5-meo experience, i have been going through different phases of integration. itās such a surreal and reality-trashing experience that i feel like a new human being and that nothing will ever be the same again. but then of course old habits and patterns have a hard time dying and as time passes i catch myself doing the old vincent. **
that is the real challenge of all psychedelic/spiritual/3d-reality-busting experiences: they show us the real Truth, smacked into our faces, loud and clear but knowing the truth and living it are two entirely different things. and thatās the challenge: changing the way i am and do, trusting myself and remembering that my thinking mind really has no clue whatās going on.
as steve jobs famously said: āyou can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. you have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. this approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.ā
you are God = pure consciousness
two days after my experience i was lying in the park listening to the song below and suddenly it hit me. i started crying and realised:
it took me 44 years to find what i didn't know i was looking for. God exists. it's in you, and me and all of us and everything you see. youāre God. we all are. when you experience this everything changes. and not a single church is needed. it's you. you're love. we're coming home. i love you.
(replace God with āconsciousnessā, āsourceā, ātaoā, āwhat isā or whatever word speaks to you. itās all the same. and you are it.)
i see you. i know the darkness you are going through at times. i do myself. life is challenging and thatās why we are here: to learn and grow and ultimately find back home. but itās also not what it seems to be. we are pure consciousness. we are one. we are here to support each other on this journey of remembering. we are all doing our best. i have been working hard on waking myself up from this dream called life. i am here for you if you need me. i am sending you all the love and strength that you need. you can do it. you are powerful beyond measure. you are God.
with profound love, vincent
we are bringing the heart protocol to europe this summer. if meeting the real you is calling you, let me know and i will share more details. just want to chat about life? iām always happy to hear from you.
want to get a teeny tiny glimpse of how it felt meeting divine love? listen to the end of this song and feel it. iām not religious* but this song captures it beautifully. life is meant to be a celebration just like this song. all we have to do is to get out of our own way.
last but not least
* religion tells us that God is separate from us that, that he is outside of us and he is judging us. thatās the fallacy and trap. thereās no separation. we are God. we entered the human form and thereby forgot that we are God so we can experience the absence of God/love because we need duality to understand what we are. God is love and we are God and love but how can we understand that except through the absence of it. we need darkness, the absence of light, to understand light. we need ugliness, the absence of beauty, to understand beauty. we need fear, the absence of love, to understand love. but really all is just God/love/light/consciousness.
** sharing my experience with others helps me just as much in keeping it alive for myself. and thatās the most important part. what do i do with this outer-worldly experience? if it doesnāt lead to changes in how i live life thereās no point except for the experience factor. integration, i.e. how i bridge these ātwo worldsā and bring the learnings back into this life is the most important and it is the part that is widely lacking. most often, after the experience you are left to your own devices.
i am excited to start creating community around experiencing and integrating consciousness expanding experiences. whether it is breath work, meditation, sound healing, psychedelics, spiritual, self inquiry or other experiences, they all lack community and support to help us bring the learnings into everyday life and enable us to make the profound changes bringing more easy, love, joy, gratitude, bliss and all the other good stuff into our lives.
this summer, we are embedding the powerful heart protocol (a more gentle experience than 5-meo-dmt) into a multi-day retreat experience and thereby seeding a community that allows us to all experiment, expand and embody together supporting each other in a safe and trusted space. personal and spiritual growth will thereby get a whole lot easier, more powerful and hopefully a lot more fun too. everything is better together. we are meant to grow together.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com -
last december, henrik zillmer, serial entrepreneur, host of the honest podcast and a dear friend of mine and i sat down to discuss a question both of us have been pondering and to which, i believe, many of us would like the answer:
i was not too excited to share our contemplations when he published it this month. my inner critic was saying: april 2023 vincent does not approve of what december 2022 vincent was thinking and saying. and indeed, today the podcast would be different.
the response of one of his listeners, himself a big entrepreneur, changed my mind:
subject: thousand thanks
ājust wanted to say thank you for the inspiring podcast about the meaning of life you posted recently. hit the spot on many of the things i fiddle with and helped me reflect better on some bigger decisions i'm facing.ā
you wonāt get the answer to the meaning of life (just yet) but you will get our sincere attempt to share what we have been discovering in asking the question. i hope youāll get from it just as much as he did.
what happened to the newsletter?
since coming back from egypt - a trip that warrants its own newsletter - i found myself going through my most profound experience yet (yes, even more than the ayahuasca ceremony i wrote about in episode 36). an experience that, i believe, will change many lives in the not-too-distant future. i am looking forward to sharing it once i have fully processed it.
i have been feeling it is not worth writing until i have something new and meaningful to say. yes, it might be entertaining or even insightful as i am sharing my trials and tribulations but what i am shooting for is to provide you with a tangible, practical answer to the question of how to best navigate life.
i am confident by now that there is such an answer. call me crazy but i believe we actually know the answer (we as the body of knowledge of humanity). but knowing is useless without embodiment, without living it. and thatās the struggle i have been in. and while i have found much more peace in it, i am still unwilling to embrace the answer i have found.
a friend recently shared with me this quote - some attribute it to albert einstein:
a clever person solves a problem. a wise person avoids it.
in other words: a clever person gets out of a situation that a wise person would never get into.
my whole journey is about becoming this wise person and then model it rather than talking and reflecting about it. it is asking me to completely shift my way of being, who vincent is. i know it will happen, i am closer than ever before and it has not happened yet. so not much new here to see. the struggle continues until i put an end to it.
i hope this finds you well and i am looking forward to sharing some exciting stuff in the near future.
with much love,
vincent
if you prefer to listen on apple podcast, hereās the link:
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com - Visa fler
